Water shut off lists from town water departments?

[Kyle Curtin]

Hi everyone!

I just had a quick question about something I did today and would love to hear your experience! So I have heard from podcasts and other investors that calling a town/city water department and asking for a list of all of the residences that have had water shut off in the past 6 months can be a nice list to market to off market.

So I called the water dept. in 2 towns I am interested in, and did not get very far at all. The first market transferred me to the treasury office/ collections and they didn’t really know what I was asking for, and in the second, the woman on the phone said she “didnt feel comfortable giving me that information because I am going to call distressed people and she didn’t like that” and I feel that she was not being helpful at all and didn’t understand that I was offering a potential solution rather than harassing them.

Should I be looking in a different place for these lists? Aren’t they public record?

Thank you,

Kyle Curtin