Can landlords charge a set water fee for all tenants? When we lived in our own home we seldom had a water bill >35 bucks.

First, chances are the "water" charge also includes sewer and may also include solid waste (trash and recycling) -- it may be described better in your lease. Second, I looked at the rates charged by the City of Ontario (http://www.ci.ontario.ca.us/index.aspx?page=431) and it seems very unlikely that the charges for an individual unit would be as high as $72/month, even if it includes water, sewer, and solid waste. But the only way to know for sure is to see the landlord's bills. Third, most (but not all) states have limits on how much a landlord can charge for utility service. The rules are often part of the public utility law -- basically exempting landlords from being public utilities as long as they don't charge a customer more than the customer would pay directly to the utility; or otherwise limiting the landlord's mark-up on the service. I don't know if there's a similar rule in California -- you may want to contact the Cal. Public Utilities Commission to see if there is a restriction (their Customer Assistance number is 1-800-649-7570, (Monday – Friday, 8:30am – 4:30pm) . There's a lot of money at stake -- for the tenants and for the landlord -- so I doubt this would be resolved quickly or informally. Once you get a better understanding of the rules, I think it's likely you'll need to find a Calif. lawyer who has some expertise in this area. (Wish I could help, but I'm 2500 miles away ...)