In alt.home.repair, on Tue, 28 May 2019 08:20:00 -0700 (PDT), TimR
wrote:

On Monday, May 27, 2019 at 7:30:39 PM UTC-4, micky wrote:
By coincidence, I'm out doing errands today, same day as above, and I
went to Best Buy even though I shoudlnt' have bothered and only spent 5
minutes, but as I was driving out, I saw one of those valve wrenches
sticking two feet out of the sidewalk, with no one around.

In some areas it is standard practice to leave the wrench in the hole, when you're working on the water. It's a message to others who might notice water not working and think it is broken, or who might come by and turn it back on with their own wrench at the worst time.

So I shouldn't have gotten out of the car and turned on the water, just
to see how hard it was to turn. Oops.

That's a local custom, I'm not sure how widespread it is.

Seems like a good idea.

That accounts for no one being around. And still an interesting
coincidence to see one the first and only day I've ever wanted to turn
off my own water.