So, you know South Africa is still in the midst of a pretty serious drought. If you’ve had a waddle up the mountain or hiked anywhere close to the reservoirs recently, you’ll have seen that many of the streams are as dry as our humour.

The City of Cape Town approved level three water restrictions this week and will implemented them from 1 November.

Here’s what it means for residents:

No use of hosepipes or automatic sprinkler systems.

Watering or irrigation (with drinking water from municipal supply) of gardens, lawns, flower beds and other plants, vegetable gardens, sports fields, parks and other open spaces will be allowed only if you use a bucket or a watering can.

You can only wash cars or boats from buckets (you should do this anyway, even if there aren’t any restrictions).

You can only refill your pool if it is fitted with a pool cover.

No automatic top-up systems are allowed.

No portable play pools are permitted to be used.

There will also be a tariff increase which is designed so that the price per kilolitre of water goes up once the resident’s use for the month exceeds certain levels.

As an example, the City of Cape Town said the first 6kl of water (Step 1) is free, up to 10,5kl each kl will cost R16,54 (Step 2). After 10,5kl, but before 20kl (Step 3) will cost R23,54 per kl and after 20kl but before 35 kl each (Step 4) will cost R40,96 etc.

This was introduced because Cape Town residents as a whole did not achieve the consistent 10% reduction in water from 1 January 2016, the city said.