You expect Halloween to bring ghosts, monsters, and things that go bump in the night. But there’s a real horror that doesn’t wait for October 31st, it’s flowing straight from your tap.

You probably assume the water coming out of your faucet is clean. It looks fine, tastes fine, so it must be fine… right? Not always. Underneath our feet, groundwater and stormwater are often carrying a chemical cocktail that sounds like a chemistry class gone wrong.

Pumpkins, costumes, haunted houses, Halloween gives us all kinds of thrills. But the scariest thing you might face this year isn’t hiding behind a door. It’s flowing through your plumbing, sitting in your glass, running through your daily routine.

When you think about what makes a city thrive, chances are you picture skyscrapers, public transit, or maybe that local coffee shop with the perfect oat milk latte. But here’s a fun fact: none of it works without clean, reliable water.

If you’re a coffee lover, you already know the drill: grind fresh beans, nail your brew method, and maybe even invest in that fancy gooseneck kettle everyone on Instagram seems to own. But here’s the plot twist: none of that matters if your water quality isn’t up to par.