Man, that's hella unfortunate.

I came back from vacation in January this year to find my meter box full of water. The half century old PVC line supplying the house from the meter finally gave in. Needless to say the city couldn't do anything about it since it was on my side of the meter. Five grand later, and now I've got a new PEX line. Fingers crossed it doesn't happen again in my lifetime and it'll be the next guy's problem in ~40-60 years.

The city was aware of the leak, and even though I never sent them proof that the leak was fixed they gave me credits for December and January that made it so I didn't have a water bill in March and April came in at around 30 bucks. Doesn't really offset the cost of repair that much, but hey, I'll take what I can get.

Jesus, and last month, my wife smelled gas by the back porch. I leaned over to the pipe running from the ground into the house and smelled it. Then I saw where the years of water pooling in the flower bed rusted the cast iron line through. Called the gas company, but they were happy to move the meter from the back side of the property up the the back porch for free. So hopefully THAT'S good for another several decades too.

This after having to have two very big and very dead oaks cut down over the last couple years.

Still beats having a landlord by about a thousand miles.