One of my siblings used to run a water company in my hometown. To make some extra money they would hire me to go out and read the water meters, a thankless task. A lot of the basements I went into were far from clean. In one I had to dig through a mountain of saw dust to find the meter, others would be hidden behind walls or buried under piles of junk. But the worst I ever encountered was the one where the cats had used the entire basement floor as a litter box. There was so much crap on the floor that I couldn’t reach the meter without stepping in it. So I figured since I was only making minimum wage I’d just put higher numbers in the meter book from the last time the meter was read and I left wondering if the last person had even bothered to read the meter or had guessed like me. I got this house a second time, but instead of ringing the door bell, I left a read your own d*m meter ticket, they could walk through the crap instead.

A lot of people would ask me why the water meter wasn’t located on the outside of the house so it wouldn’t be necessary for us to come in, ah, winter, water freezes, most never thought of that. Seems obvious to me, just saying. Also when I knocked on the door and they asked who’s there I of course answered water department. However more than once people heard fire department, accent perhaps?