House-Sitter's Nightmare

Several years ago, the water pump failed at the house I was staying at and the dog and I had no running water for 7 days.  I was easily able to fill buckets from the house across the street, and the dog and I had no trouble.  It happened in November, when watering flowers and the yard was not an issue.  I just finished more time at Lynn's house.  I had her permission to drive her car during her absence, and of course, I was looking after the critters and the house and yard.  On Monday, I drove to the gas station and filled the gas tank, then drove to the library and picked up the books I had requested.  I returned to Lynn's, took the books inside, and left the car in the garage.
  Monday evening, I ate a quick meal, and was going to wash the plate and utensils that I had used.  I had a surprise when no water flowed from the tap - anywhere in the house, kitchen or bathrooms.  I looked in the basement, in the area of the water heater, but didn't find a circuit breaker box.  I checked all the walls inside the house, and on the outside of the garage, where the solar panels have their connections and all the irrigation systems are located.  No circuit breakers.  So I called Lynn, and contacted her while she was walking on a street in New York City.  I described the problem, and asked where the circuit breaker box was - she directed me to check on five other things and to call her back.  Everything was negative, so I called her back, and asked again about the circuit breakers.  They were located behind a fitted wall in the garage - and the switch had popped...  So I reset it, listened to the sound of water running in the pipes in the adobe house, and called Lynn back to assure her things were OK.
   Late yesterday morning, I turned on the water in the kitchen, to wash my brunch dishes before leaving to pick Lynn up from the airport. No water.  I checked the pump circuit breaker, and it was still on.  I checked the water level in the cistern, which was fine.  But none of the outside hoses had water, nor did anything inside. I flipped the water pump circuit breaker in hopes that would do the trick.  Still no water, and Lynn was in flight.  The irrigation system had watered the yard and garden in the morning, but I went ahead and turned the systems off, so the pump wouldn't burn out (just in case).
   I double-checked that Lynn's flight was on time, and I stepped out into the garage to drive to Denver.  I stopped on the steps - there was a scrape running down the entire side of the Lexus.  It hadn't been there when I drove to the gas station and library the day before.  I had left the car parked only when I went into the library, so it could only have happened there.  I went back inside and called the library, and asked if they had camera surveillance on their parking lot - hoping we could see and identify who had scraped the car.  No cameras, no surveillance, no evidence.  Crap.  I left to pick Lynn up and felt sick to my stomach - she had no water, and the car had been damaged without my noticing it.
  Lynn was so excited and happy to be home that I had to point out the damage on the car to her.  I told her when and where I believed the scrape had happened, and that the library had been contacted, but they didn't have film of the lot.  Then I told her about the water situation - she called three water pump companies immediately - and only one could send someone over to check out what was wrong.
  The regular water pump was fine - the water pump in the cistern was shot and needed to be replaced.  The cistern holds 3,600 gallons; it had 2,400 gallons in it yesterday afternoon; the cistern pump is located on the bottom of the cistern; we had to pump out and dump 2,400 gallons of water.  The pump was replaced and water was running in the house again at 9 p.m. - but since the man had to walk on the bottom of the cistern to replace the pump, the water had to have a chlorine shock to kill anything that might have been on the man's booties.  Oh, boy.....
   At least I wasn't responsible for any of the troubles - the cistern pump was 12 years old, and they usually have a life of 7 to 10 years.  And, unfortunately, here in Boulder, people have a habit of having minor accidents and not reporting them - like scraping down the side of the car.  Thankfully it's a well-known fact of life that folks in Boulder leave "minor" accidents - even though it's not legal.