> Now, over here gas meters are all inside people's houses. And there aren't any water meters in my part of the country, but where they do exist, I think they're indoors, too. Which would add a whole new dimension to this, I think.

We have water meters here, but they're not visible to the passerby. They're generally found underground somewhere on the property, and take the form of a small numbered dial attached to the main waterpipe. At my parents' house this was under a small concrete square under the trees in the front yard. At a house I lived in recently, it was under a loose cobblestone where the driveway met the road.

I don't know about gas meters since I've never lived in a house with gas power. The electricity meters are generally in a glassed-in box on the outside of the house (for newer houses) or just inside the back door (for houses built in the days when you'd leave the back door unlocked while you were at work so a complete stranger could go into your house in your absence to read the meter).

So it looks like we couldn't play the meter game in this country.