Living in a small village usually means everyone knows everyone’s business, which made this particular mystery of stolen water even more suspicious once the details started lining up.

One homeowner’s family got a call from the mayor suggesting a possible waterline leak, only to discover their bill had spiked dramatically for a household of just four people using normal amounts.

Around the same time, they learned their neighbors had gone a full month without water service due to unpaid bills, yet somehow had a completely full swimming pool sitting in their backyard.

The timing felt far too convenient to ignore. But without hard proof, confronting the situation directly wasn’t as simple as it seemed.

Keep reading for the full story!

Neighbors might be stealing our water

I live in a small village, and we suspect our neighbors might be stealing our water.

My father, who serves on the village council, received a call from the mayor informing him that we likely leaked our waterline.

The family immediately began noticing some discrepencies.

When he returned home to investigate, he was shocked to see how much higher our water bill had become. Four people shouldn’t be racking up a bill that steep with regular usage.

The neighbors did seem to have a heck of a motive.

It’s worth mentioning that our neighbors have been without water for the past four weeks because they haven’t paid their bill. Yet when my father looked out at their yard, he noticed their pool was suddenly full.

The family can’t exactly prove it, so they begin to weigh their next steps.

Unfortunately, we don’t have concrete proof that they’re using our water, which makes the situation tricky. My parents are considering installing a camera in our kitchen window since it overlooks the outside spigot, and my dad has just bought a lock for the faucet.

They turn to Reddit for some much-needed advice.

Beyond that and shutting off the water valve outside, is there anything else we can do? They aren’t the worst neighbors we’ve had, but any advice would be greatly appreciated.

The more sinister part of me wants to call up a friend from out of town and ask them to slash their pool, but I don’t want to take out my frustrations on their daughters, who are just innocent kids.

This is a tough situation.

Redditors were happy to offer some support.

The homeowners need to choose their next move very carefully.

Confrontation needs to come sooner than later.

Why not get the water company themselves involved?

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a woman who refused to let her neighbor have access to his spot, telling him to drive over the curb instead.

This commenter is going through a very similar situation.

A water bill randomly spiking right when a broke neighbor fills their pool up is far from subtle.

What’s frustrating is having to tiptoe around the truth just because there’s no cold, hard evidence yet. But honestly the circumstantial evidence already tells the whole story.

There’s a solution here, but it may take a bit of patience on the homeowner’s part.

Some things just aren’t meant to be shared.