A House with a Pool

I recall my parents looking at new homes, and their dreams of buying one with a built-in pool.  But it was never meant to be then.

When an opportunity arose for my husband and I to rent a Florida house with an in-ground pool, it was exciting.  That must have overshadowed our judgment when we entered into a lease with the house owner.

The pool was a dream when we first saw it.  After signing the lease, we brought our daughters to look at the house to find that the pool was filled with paint chips from the owner and his friend trying to repair the deck and porch surface.

As part of the lease, owner was responsible for the pool maintenance.  For the first year, the pool was barely useable.  Owner had left the state and had engaged from afar some of the worst, and cheapest, pool maintenance people available in the Hunters Creek, Orlando area.  The pump did not operate properly.  The filter was never cleaned.  One service put in so many chemicals, my daughters were nearly hospitalized from skin rashes.  Another service put in hardly any chemicals so the pool was either green from algae or cloudy from dead algae.

Finally, we told owner we were going to engage our own service.  For the first time in over a year, we had a beautiful, crystal clear pool where no one got rashes and even our little dog could swim without getting abscesses on her little paws!

Then in January 2012, owner relocated back to Florida, after two other of his businesses and several of his personal relationships failed.

On February 11, 2012, I told owner there was a problem with the pool pump.  Wrong move on my part.  Owner, as usual, decided to try to fix it himself.  To make a long and painful story short, pump was broken for weeks, due to owner’s lack of knowledge in not only operating but in fixing pool pumps.  But that did not stop him from blaming all but himself and holding me responsible for having it cleaned due to his gross negligence.

This painful story will be dealt with in more details in other posts, but as of the date of this post, April 22, 2012, this is what the pool looks like after owner’s meddling and failure.  It should be noted that the pool pump is still not operating properly.  I have had several professional pool services assess the problems, of which owner has refused to acknowledge their expert remedies.