HOUSTON -- Imagine paying your water bill every month and then, years later, the city says you actually owe more for charges they failed to pass along.

A Houston woman says she's being hosed by the water department. She asked KPRC Local 2 investigative reporter Amy Davis for some relief.

Lena Newsome pays her water bill on time, in person at the water department every month. But she says she felt a little light-headed when she got last month's bill.

"I about flipped out when I looked at it," Newsome told Davis. "A $944 water bill is outrageous."

Nine-hundred-forty-four dollars is what is the city of Houston water department says Newsome owes, not just for last month, but for the last two years.

"I got a water bill every month and I paid it every month," Newsome said.

But the city now says those water bills Newsome paid were inaccurate. They say Newsome's water meter was broken and has been unreadable since 2001. That's right. The city says her water meter broke seven years ago.

"They hadn't been reading it in seven years," Newsome said. "What was they doing? What was the maintenance men doing?"

"How does a meter remain broken for seven years and the city not fix it?" Davis asked Karen Leback, the assistant director of Utility Customer Service.

"This, unfortunately, is one that fell through the cracks," Leback answered. "I will be the first to admit that it usually does not take that long to correct a meter or fix a meter. But this one did and I don't have a good explanation for it."

Leback takes responsibility for the broken meter and the city's slow response to fix it, but she says the huge bill is Newsome's responsibility.

The city's Code of Ordinances says Public Works can go back two years to charge for water used.

Once crews repaired the meter last summer, they used eight months of readings to get an average usage. That's how they say they discovered their estimated readings were too low in past years.

The only relief the city is offering Newsome is a payment plan and the following advice.

"A customer can check their meter themselves if they'd like to," Leback explained. "I know these are elderly customers, but they could check their meter to see what their read is themselves."

Leback says reading your own meter would let you know if your reading is in line with what you're getting billed, but it's not a practical suggestion for a spry yet 80-year-old Newsome.

"Well, I could get down there to read the meter, but I could not get up," Newsome explained. "So I wonder if the water people's gonna come out and help me up."

"It just sounds like an awful lot of the responsibility or the burden is falling back to the homeowner when, in fact, the city did everything wrong, by estimating for seven years, by not fixing a meter when you knew it was broken. So, how is this the customer's responsibility when you really can't prove they used the water or not?" Davis asked Leback.

"Well, based on their consumption prior to being estimated, based on their current consumption, it came out to be about the same," Leback said.

Davis called Newsome's city council member to try to get her some help. She will follow up and let you know if they are able to help.

The city is not required to note on your bill when your meter reading was estimated instead of actually read.

Leback says between 12,000 and 15,000 water meter reads are estimated every month. The city owns more than 465,000 meters.

Newsome's only other recourse is to file for an administrative hearing before the water board.

Leback says they will consider evidence that she used less water over the last two years than what they are now charging her.