The University of Maine enrolls about as many students as Orono, Maine has residents, which makes this small town an unusually concentrated rental market and an expensive one to run when water is bundled into rent. Water submetering fixes the billing side. Nearly all the off-campus housing here belongs to individual landlords, the older homes and small apartment buildings along the Stillwater River and the roads feeding campus, leased by the academic year. Students paying flat rent have no reason to shorten a shower or mention a fixture that drips all winter. True Submeter puts an individual water meter on each unit and sends every tenant an automatic monthly invoice for exactly what they used, so the owner recovers the full water bill. Consumption drops once it costs something, the water charge stops being a negotiation, and net operating income rises, with most owners recouping the whole system in about six months. A town this small cannot afford to give water away by the building.
