This story began when a few months ago, I visited my grandparents who lives two blocks away from my home. Sitting there in the living room drinking Lebanese coffee with my grandfather, I noticed that something was bothering him. So I asked, « what’s the problem grandpa? ». He tolled me that they have been spending more than usual on water deliveries. In Lebanon it is a common thing that every building receives at least one water delivery per week which averages about 200$ a month, but my grandparents bill was much worse than that.

As shown in this graph, the total spending on water deliveries in January was 200$ (which equates to 4 Deliveries) , which is the average in Lebanon. But this number kept increasing during the months to reach 300$ in February (which equates to 6 Deliveries) and 400$ in Marsh (which equates to 8 Deliveries).

I-HOW DOES STEALING WATER WORKS?

This map shows the neighborhood where my grandparents live. There are four houses surrounding them. The blue line on the street represents the main water canal, which supplies water to all the homes. If a neighbor tries to steal water, they must install a pipe that connects to another house’s pipe—this is shown as the red pipe in the picture. As a result, the water pressure at my grandparents’ house becomes weaker, while the flow to the neighbor’s house increases.

II-WHO ARE THE SUSPECTS?

In the neighborhood there are 4 suspects who could be stealing water.

A) SUSPECT1: « 3amo Abou Tony »

« 3amo Abou tony » spends all day shouting at « Em Tony ». He has a chicken coup, and every day at 6 in the morning he goes down to the coup wearing his short with no shirt on to collect eggs.

B) SUSPECT 2: « 3amo Chafi2 »

Our second suspect is « 3amo Chafi2, » also known as « The DIKANJE. » He owns a mini-market in the neighborhood and is known for carrying around 3 kilograms of keys at his waist—as if he holds the keys to heaven. Most of the time, he stays inside the shop, drinking alcohol and chatting with teenage girls. In addition, whenever he bends down to adjust the vegetables, his glutes are noticeably visible.

C) SUSPECT 3: « Tante Salma »

Further more, our third suspect is « Tante Salma. » My grandpa told me that, in her youth, she was a stunning woman who married the wrong man. Her ex-husband was unfaithful and addicted to gambling. After their divorce, she took half of his money and belongings. From that point on, she started smoking « Cedars Adim » and began adopting stray cats to fill the emotional void he left behind. In addition, the latest neighborhood gossip says that she has lung cancer.

D) SUSPECT 4: « 3amo Gerges »

Finally, our fourth and last suspect is « 3amo Gerges. » He was married to « Tante Salma » before she discovered he was cheating on her and had a gambling problem. After their divorce, he lost half of his money and assets, including his favorite Rolex. To make up for it, he bought a fake one instead. He always wears Ray-Bans so that the ladies don’t notice he’s checking them out. Recently, he is dating a 55 year old ex Russian model named Katerini-Katyosha Stloleshnaya that lives with him. They met at the casino.

III- THE NEIGHBORS WATER CONSUMPTION

As part of my investigative work, I went up to the roof and started spying on the neighbors to see how their water consumption works. I noticed that there are four variables: showering, cleaning, diches and laundry.

A) WATER CONSUMPTION FOR SUSPECT 1

« 3amo Abou Tony » spends 40.2% of his water consumption on laundry. Which makes sense since his clothes are always covered in feathers from the chickens.

B) WATER CONSUMPTION FOR SUSPECT 2

The variable that « 3amo Chafi2 » spends the most water on is cleaning. Since he has a mini-market, he cleans it everyday after the vegetables arrives in the morning.

C) WATER CONSUMPTION SUSPECT 3

As for « Tante Salma » she spends most of her total consumption of water on laundry. Since she smokes and has 10 cats at home, she has smelly and dirty clothes. That’s why she does the laundry on a daily basis.

D) WATER CONSUMPTION SUSPECT 4

Last but not least, « 3amo Gerges » is spending most of his water consumption on laundry. Since he spends his time with a lot of women, he washes the smell of women’s perfume off his clothes so his girlfriends doesn’t notice.

IV- WHO IS GUILTY?

In addition, you can see in this bar chart that the house of Gerges consumes the most amount of water (>1200 L). But if I compare it with water deliveries. We can see that he has on average the least amount of water deliveries per week. This doesn’t makes sense since he consumes the most amount of water. That means that we found our thief.

V- CONCLUSION

In conclusion, we all face everyday problems. But no mater how small or silly they seam (like finding out who is stealing water). Even thought some problems might seam complicated. Data visualization can help you understand better the problem in order to find solutions.