It shouldn’t be green, should it?

Ok the title’s a little misleading, but in the end you see where it’s from. But anyway I’ll begin at the beginning, a good a place as any.

About eight weeks ago, well ok let’s step back even further, to the very beginning.

In December last year I got a transfer with my job to where I live now, now as part of my salary package I received rental assistance, now this is basically where my employer will pay 2/3 of my rent for the next two years, so looking this gift horse directly in the mouth, I though shit let’s use this to my absolute advantage. I looked for one of the nicest (and most expensive, funny how that goes together) places I could find and low and behold I found one…..

A brief description for the masses, house….blah blah blah, and the draw card? A fully fenced, large, solar heated, salt water, in ground pool…….. aahhhhhhhhhhhh.

So what did I do? You betcha, I signed that lease.

So, I have never had a pool anywhere, the parents decided to get one put in long after I had left home, but luckily while my brothers were still living at home and my sister was just a glint in her parents eyes, so my fellow siblings could get maximum benefit from said pool (gotta love the parents). But me, no.

I have no skill and very little interest in obtaining any for the sake of pool maintenance. My step dad told me that it’s pretty easy and started in on a description…..blah, blah, blah. Yeah, yeah, I hear what you’re saying but I think I’ll just get someone to maintain it for me, and then I don’t have to worry. He thinks that might be the way to go too, not of course implying that I am incapable of looking after it but with professionals, you know that it will always be ok….Yeah, THANKS.

So with this in mind and remnants of the “pool man” fantasies playing in the back of my head. I call to arrange for someone to come to maintain it. So I get the yes we’ll come out and take a look, ok the address, yep, ok and now onto business.

“How often do I want it cleaned? I don’t know. How often do you come out?”
…..
“Oh, I have a choice, weekly, fortnightly or monthly”.
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“Oh, right how much does it cost? I’m sorry? How much?”
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“$50 each time you come out and extra for chemicals?” Je-sus!
…..
“Well I better make it monthly then”, I am by now revising the pool maintenance for dummies speech I got from my step dad, boy I should have written some of that down.

But in the end I go with the pool shop, I don’t really want to do it (maintain the pool that is), and if they do I never have to worry, oh and I have this serious condition called laziness, don’t know if you have heard of it but I personally have a chronic case. Now to add to this, the pool is totally automated, the pump, filter whatever, is all set on a timer, and I have to press one button to turn on the solar heating (which I had) so I did not have to do anything (but boy does that puppy suck up some power) except swim when I want to and occasionally when the water is mysteriously sucked from the pool, obviously by a thirsty giant with a straw and a penchant for salt water, I have to drop in the hose to top the pool up (and turn on the tap – the effort involved!).

So I’m set, the first time the pool ‘man’ (or men more correctly) came they parked me in and I had to get them to move the van so I could go to work. The second time they walked past my window, which was open while I was getting dressed for work, I had to do some serious fast moving to avoid detection on that one, and mostly the pool ‘man’ is actually a woman – so much for the fantasies! But the pool was always clean and sparkly and good to swim in.

That was until just recently, now about 2 months ago the pool people came out and I got a call saying there was something wrong with the pump and that they had taken it away. They will contact the owner (who they know as he used to get them to do the same thing when he was still here), and then they will bring it back fixed (or a new one) and all would be back to normal. Right? Well so you would think.

It is now winter and in my opinion too cold to swim, so I haven’t been swimming for a few months now. But just as well, I went out assuming that the pump would have been returned weeks ago and all would have been well, to discover it’s still gone and the pool is beginning to turn a murky shade of green.

So I ring the pool shop. Yes they still have the pump, yes they have spoken to the owner, yes, he said it is fine for them to fix it, yes, yes, yes….. But why is it still not fixed? I called the real estate who mimicked the conversation I had with the pool shop and here I am the pool slowly become a swamp and yes it’ll be fixed, let’s hope they get here before next summer!