When I lived in an apartment water wasn't metered for usage. It was a flat fee so it didn't really matter if I used more or less water. The water bill was like $20 a month, but that was several years ago in Redlands. We also had to pay trash, sewage, and of course electricity.
A buddy of mine who lived in a different apartment complex paid based on usage for the building, since they were off of 1 meter per building and then it got divided by how many apartments rented out in that building. Each building had 8 apartments.
So if one building had 8 apartments and the water billing was like $300, it would have been divided by 8. Which is about $38 a month per apartment in that building. Sometimes it would be more, sometimes less, but mostly less.
You should be able to ask the landlords how the water, trash, etc is billed.
