A Mount Pleasant, Michigan landlord sets the rent once at signing. The water bill for a house full of Central Michigan students, though, rises and falls all year with no relation to it, and the owner eats every dollar of the swing. Water submetering ends the mismatch by putting a meter, and a bill, on each unit. Mount Pleasant’s off-campus housing is overwhelmingly student rentals owned by individual landlords, the older homes and small apartment buildings that fill the blocks around CMU. Bundle water into the rent and you have fixed your income while leaving your costs wide open. True Submeter installs an individual water meter on each unit and invoices tenants automatically for their own use, so the swing lands on them and the full bill comes back to you. Consumption steadies once it has a price, disputes over the shared bill end, and net operating income rises, most owners recovering the cost inside six months. Your rent is locked for a year, and your water bill should be just as steady.
