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Our house construction included roof gutters which drained into about 6 1m x1m (depth unknown) concrete structures which we thought were to store rain water. This impression was reinforced by the existence of a pipe visible near the top of each "cistern", seemingly to direct overflow away from the house. There has been a severe shortage in the municipal water supply, so 2 weeks ago my brother-in-law (we are currently in the US) removed the heavy concrete lid on on of these "cisterns" and discovered that the bottom was just dirt, not concrete, and it was quite dry. WTF, thought we. I contacted the builder and he said " I will let you know that there is no cistern tank that we construct in your residence, I don't know where you get this information that we build a cistern tank. What we build there is a catch basin to catch all rain water from the roof and water from the shower and the kitchen. " My mind is boggled. Water should be directed away from the house, not collected near the foundation and allowed to soak into the ground right next to the foundation. The builder has got to be spewing BS. Comments please.