Winnipeg man buys house, gets $87K water bill

A Winnipeg homeowner is looking for answers after a house he bought ended up coming with an $87,000 water bill.

Tom Kisloski is mostly retired, but he and his sons buy and fix houses to make extra money.

In June, he bought a bungalow and started fixing it up.

But when he called the city's water and waste department to give his meter reading, something was wrong.

"There was a problem when I read the water meter to the water department," he said. "They sparked up right there. They said, 'There's something wrong.'"

The numbers were so high the department sent out a new meter and swapped out the old one.

Kisloski still had no idea what the issue was until he tried to put the house up for sale.

"Then [my] lawyer said, 'Tom. I'm sorry. You can't sell the house,'" he said. "He says, 'Well. I wouldn't advise you sell.'"

Kisloski's lawyer didn't give him much information about why he couldn't sell, so he phoned the city to find out if it had something to do with the meter replacement.

That's when a clerk told him he owed $87,000.

"I was shocked shocked," he said.

A senior official with the City of Winnipeg confirmed the bill was at $87,000, and it appears to be a discrepancy between the water meter reading from the previous owner and the one Kisloski sent in.

MynarskiCoun.Ross Eadieis aware of the issue and told CBC Newshe's been trying to get some answers from the water and waste department.

"They can't sell [the house] until this is cleared up, and so far it looks like they are on the hook for $87,000. Something is wrong here," Eadie said.

Kisloski's son Larry said it doesn't make sense to have a bill that high after only owning a home for a few months.

"I almost dropped," said Larry. "$87,000! You'd have to own a house for perhaps 100 years and not pay any bills to get that kind of water bill."

Kisloski's lawyer told him he's now talking to the lawyer of the woman he bought the house from, but there are still no definitive answers about what will happen with the bill or how it got so high.

"Till today, it's comme ci comme a from one to the other," he said.

City officials say they are looking into the case further.