Water Wars!

The bill that came today from the Marie of Lignieres was for 423.57 Euros for H2O for Dix (10) Rt. St Amand Montrond aka The Little House (In deference to this house Maison Blanche which is across town from Dix) period. Here, in Lignieres, in Cher, maybe in all of France that is one hell of a water bill...especially since no body has lived in the house from September of 2006 to date. We moved into Maison Blanche then. Further the water has been MISSING the entire time...that's right, there is no water coming into any pipe within the confines of 10 Rt. Saint Amand. So what can we do? What have we done? Well poopsie that is The Story.
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The Story

Background:
Chapter 1: There was a huge project in Lignieres during 2006 - 2007 in which new connections for many city operated or administered services were installed. Water, Electricity, Sewer etc.

Chapter 2: Sometime in the recent past, perhaps 2 years ago, the Veolia company took over the water distribution for Lignieres.

Chapter 3: We had normal water delivery during any period of time that we were living at Dix. prior to the Fall of 2006.

Chapter 4: Ted, a half-owner of Dix, came in the Spring of 2007 with his mate Diane, to stay at Dix for a few days. He had no water at that time at the house. Ted complained about the lack of water to the Maire but he left shortly thereafter.

Chapter 5: The water company Veolia was instructed to mail the water bill for Dix to our California address so that we could remit payment in a timely manner.

Chapter 6: The bills we received were never successfully paid due to us either missing the bill as were were here when it was sent or Veolia would not accept a copied version of the bill when it was paid by return mail from France.

Chapter 7: Upon our stay in Ligniere in the summer of 2008 there still was no water at Dix.

Chapter 8: We still had no water at Dix Rt. de St. Amand. when we returned to Lignieres in late March of this year (2009).

Chapter 9: We went to the Maire once again to explain that we had no water at Dix, they promised that a person would come and look at the problem. A fine gentleman showed up and made a date with us to see about the situation at the Dix house. We met him the next day and he looked at the meter, turned the valve and nothing! No Eau Pas! No water! With this we thought, now we get some action. He left, we left.

Chapter 10: As we were getting Dix ready to sell the water issue was becoming a real problem, cleaning the house and watering the garden could not be done in any reasonable way. All during the next few weeks as we cleaned out the furniture and goo-gaws from the interior of the Dix house we still had no water. We returned to the Maire to complain and was told that we would have to contact Veolia.

Chapter 11: We continued to unload stuff from Dix and after a week or so returned once again to the Maire to find out how we could contact Veolia when the nearest office was many miles away and whom should we talk to? The kindly person at the front office called Veolia for us and thus was scheduled a visit yesterday for them to come to check out the lack of water at Dix.

Chapter 12: At about 11:15 in the morning a tall young woman in a Veolia costume appeared at our door at 35 Rue MJ. Through her speedy French I understood she wondered if she could visit Dix earlier than the originally schedule 14:30 hr previously agreed to.
I said my default phrase when confronted by a French person speaking French at the speed of sound "Oui, oui"! So soon we found ourselves in the car and racing through town to get to Dix for the Veolia inspection of the "No eau pas" (no low pah) problem so familiar to all involved. She looked at the meter, turned the valve both directions, tested the toilet fluching (nope!) and tried the sink faucet (dry as a bone). Then in French even more rapid that back at 35 she aimed us at the Maire once more to do what, I didn't have the slightest idea either then or now nearly 24 hours later. She said goodbye, we said goodbye, she hoped in her little Veolia van-car and we did likewise in the Toyota and that was the setup to the next chapter.
Chapter 13: Arriving at the Maire the lovely person at the desk rapidly explained what Veolia had found and said (according to Kelly) that WE need to get a plumbier to fix the problem. We?! The problem is NOT in the house...it's on their turf outside the house where the water IS...at their valve...why is that OUR problem to solve? Are we to watch as the plumber digs up the street with a backhoe holding up traffic with a series of flagmen or women and electric lights front and back? Oh my...water wars indeed!

Chapter 14: Then The Bill arrived today from the Maire...ohhhhh