I've never heard of anything like this. Seriously, how do you live? Can you flush the toilet, take showers, run the dishwasher? I can't even imagine!
We are in the mountain / high desert region of San Diego. We are all on wells and most have water storage tanks on our properties. Two weeks ago, in a desperate measure, I replaced my old 5K gallon tank (it sprung a leak) with a pair of new 5k gallon tanks run in series. The well pump pulls water, as often as it is available, from the groundwater aquifer to the tanks. If there is ample groundwater, running the house from the water storage tanks is no different than any city home thanks to the pressure tank and booster pump. I have floats/switches in the storage tanks to help me monitor levels and make my plans accordingly. My hope is that once the tanks fill (recovery is a very slow process!) I can get ahead of our water use during the wet months and then have a better buffer in the dry months. This drought is very real.
Yes,
generally we can shower and flush toilets -- but through the warmer months (March-October), I often need to make a trade off: shower
or laundry. It has been a very long dry season: sink baths become the norm. I went a full week this summer flushing toilets with buckets of water drawn manually from the rain catch barrels as my water storage tank level was insufficient to run the booster pump. Let's just say you learn to monitor water usage carefully and you must make decisions. Which is more important: Watering the livestock? Watering the garden? Watering the rose bushes? Taking a shower?
FWIW, we finally let the rose bushes go this year. Sad ... but there simply wasn't enough water. And one night, after an especially hot day, I took a lovely skinny-dip in the horse's water trough just before cleaning it. I couldn't bear the idea of dumping all that lovely water just to clean the trough ... so after dark I stripped down, jumped in and soaked. That was incredibly marvelous: water all the way to my ears! (Imagine the joy compare to a week of skimpy sink baths.)
Gladly -- there are timeshares to give us a weekend of "high living." Yep, we get caught up on laundry, soak in a deep bathtub (joy!), and feel clean from head to toe. 'Water' is becoming a 'Resort Amenity' that rivals any other activity, theme park or dining option! Nope, not kidding.