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Garbage in, Garbage out: MV's Waterinsight Program

Original post made by T.C., Blossom Valley, on Nov 20, 2015

Would you spend money on a report that is supposed to compare water usage between houses if they had no real idea how many people were living in each house? Well apparently, that's just what MV did.
Watersmart is a start-up company with less than 4 yrs customer experience that makes water comparison software.

Yesterday we got our reports on usage compared to similar houses w/ a certain number of people and size yard. The problem is, of the 4 neighbors I've spoken with, none of us had them assuming the correct number of people in our house. They said we had 3. We have 5. Our neighbors with 3 were assumed to have 4(they had a very favorable report, haha) Two more with 3 in the house were assumed to have 2. You get the picture.

Since we're in the assumption game here I'm going to assume NONE of this comparison data is worth a lick. Even if they have your occupancy data correct, they are comparing it against all the incorrect occupancy data, so that home's comparison data is garbage as well. I started to look into how to change this on the website provided, but after verifying my home address with a code, they immediately wanted my email address. WHAT!?! I'm going to give who knows who a direct 1:1 relationship between my email address and my house? On a start-up's software?!?! HA!!

Oh well, one less envelope I have to open. These Waterinsight reports will go right into the recycler. Garbage in, garbage out, or in this case, Recycler out.

I think quite a bit of our money was wasted here, esp with the rains shifting people's attention away from conservation, right or wrong.
Swing and a miss City of MV.

Comments (3)

Posted by Observer
a resident of Old Mountain View
on Nov 20, 2015 at 8:41 am

Yes, I agree. Thank you for bringing this up and researching this waste. I was also told we had two people living in a house when we have four. And you're right, the also try to lure you into creating or updating your info so they can run off with all your personal information.

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Posted by Old MV Native
a resident of another community
on Nov 20, 2015 at 9:40 am

We moved to Roseville 8 yrs ago and it looks like our city was also conned into buying this sw. Out here, we've also noted the comical attempts at guessing how many water users are in each house. Well over 50% of our neighbors user numbers were wrong.

I would be very cautious about entering any personal info into that website. I don't think it will be around for the long haul. It's a complete joke, and we're VERY water conscientious out here. So much so that they are proposing a 21% rate hike!
They have money to waste on this water comparo rubbish, and we do more than our part to save, so now we need to pay them more of our money. Ya gotta love the gubment!

I would drive to see who authorized this in your home town and hold them accountable. That's what we're doing out here.

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Posted by Plane Speaker
a resident of another community
on Nov 22, 2015 at 10:08 pm

Well, in California we are going to have to get serious about conservation ... but when you look at how much people use versus how much industry uses it seems like the vast majority of water is used by industry to the point it hardly makes a difference what people do.

It's just hard to make decisions off numbers for the most part. I wonder when it is going to come down to having to swipe our cell phones in our own houses to be able to take a shower or wash our clothes?

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Garbage in, Garbage out: MV's Waterinsight Program

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