Paul's Infrequently Updated Blog

We are now well pasted Memorial Day and our communal swimming pool is still not open. I have asked around and from what I found out work needs to be done before the pool can open. I assume that this must be the same work that I kept telling them about last year when I ran the pool. The townhouse association chose to ignore what I was saying then then gave me a hard time when I had to close the pool early.

Even though I hear they are going to open the pool after they have carried out repairs the fact of the matter is that this should have been done in March and April before the pool was due to be opened. Instead it is now June, the pool is supposed to be open and I am paying for a pool that is not open. Its a pity they did not listern to me last year, they might not be in this situation if they had listened to my concerns.

A few days ago, we came home from school to find a note addressed to me taped to our front door. It was from the couple who are the groundskeepers at our townhouse complex and who originally built the townhouses back the the early 1980′s. I also discovered for the first time (from the note), that the husband is the President of the Townhouse Association.

Basically, they were upset that I had closed the pool early and said that I owed them $80 for the part of August when the swimming pool was not open. They claimed that, since I did not run the pool for the second half of August, then I should reimburse the Townhouse Association money that was paid to me for the month of August covering the time I was not running the swimming pool.

Of course I do not see things like that. First, I had to close the pool because of a safety violation. I also feel that I have put in a lot more extra work this year, which has been required because they have not maintained the pool equipment and facilities other the years as they should. I even ended up calling the husband and I found him to be quite rude. He would not accept my version of events and then had the nerve to say that I was responsible for shutting down the swimming pool pump that resulted in the water turning green and becoming a health hazard. This is despite the fact that his wife told me to shut the pump and and I warned her of the consequences!!!

After much consideration, I just want to be done with the pool. It is just too much trouble and not worth the $250 a month they were paying. I have not yet paid them their money.  I have decided to wait awhile and maybe pay only $50 or $60. I am not going to pay the full amount. I have heard that the husband and wife are in the process of selling their six remaining townhouses and, if they do, then they will not be involved in running the townhouse association anymore. If that is the case, then I may not need to pay this money. As it stands now, this demand is an insult after all the time and effort I put in trying to make the pool equipment operate as it should and following their instructions in shutting the pump down then the safety violation occurred.

Today, when I got home from school, I was getting changed upstairs when there was a loud banging at the door. I looked out from the front bedroom window to see that it was one of the  two grounds people who look after the grounds here at the townhouses. I went downstairs to find out what she wanted and she asked me what was going to happen to the swimming pool. I explained to her that I believed it was not my responsibility to repair the pool, that it was not in my contract to do such work and that I expected to be paid to do such work which I really did not want to do anyway.

When I told her this, she got somewhat belligerent and said that she wanted the keys to the pool and that I was done. I pointed out that I still had a contractual responsibility to close the pool and have it winterized to which she responded, “Don’t worry about it. We’ll take care of it.” I have to say I am not very happy because my contract does require me to close the pool up for the year and be paid for carrying out that obligation.

The one good thing about this is that I now have no more responsibility for the swimming pool. The pool has become a huge burden this year and I was spending too much time working on it when compared to what I was getting paid. If the people responsible had been maintaining the pool equipment over the years, as they were supposed to, then running the pool as the manager and operator would have been easy. In fact, the only thing I should need to do is top up the pool water each day and backwash the filter once week. Instead, I was spending a few hours each day trying to keep things working. At least now I am done with it and it will be interesting to see if the pool is open next year.

Yesterday, I had to close the swimming pool for the rest of the year. The reason for this is that it appears that someone has tampered with the pool drain cover at the bottom of the pool and, as a consequence, I had no choice but to close the pool. To continue to operate the pool with the pool drain cover not secure is a violation of federal law. If anyone had been injured because of the problem, both the townhouse association and I would be in serious trouble. I regret having to close the pool and did everything I could to try and fix the problem, but, in the end, I could not fix it. It is sad because I will not be able to use the pool and, after several weeks of trying to sort out the pool water, I had managed to get everything perfect. The pool water is crystal clear.

For now, I have left the pump running and I am maintaining the water. The people who look after the grounds will have to decide what they want to do about it. The only real way to fix this problem is to drain the pool, secure the cover. and then refill the pool. Doing all of that will take at least two weeks and by then it will be time to close the pool for the winter. One thing that is not going to happen is me fixing this problem. It is not in my contract and with school about to start up I will not have the time to do it. Also, I will not be running the pool next year so it will be up to the townhouse association to decide how to deal with this issue. I have a feeling that with all the other problems going on with the pool we might not even have a pool next year. There are many problems that need to be fixed that will take time and money to resolve.

I am still having problems with the swimming pool. A few days ago, I got the people who maintain the grounds to contact a plumber to address some of the problems with the pool. Pretty much all that happened was that the plumber took a look in the pump house and said that everything was fine. Of course I have to operate the pool and I know that everything is not fine because there is an air leak the pump is not working properly.

Instead of having a steady flow of water through the pump, there is a “surge” because the pump is sucking air as well as water. Because of this, I am unable to vacuum the bottom of the pool. Right now, the pool bottom is dirty, but most people don’t have a problem with it. I hope that I can run the pool for the rest of the season without it getting too dirty because, if it does, I cannot clean it.