Spooky scary pool stories

By Emma Peterson.

These three stories of unmaintained pools will send shivers down your spine.

Anyone who has worked in the pool or spa industry has a spooky story about a pool that has not had the maintenance it needs. For Halloween a few years ago, the Pool and Hot Tub Alliance reached out to their members for some of their best stories.

1 - A pool running orange with iron

Jim Egan sent in a photo of a pool that almost looks fake because it is so bright orange. What happened here? Don’t worry, as far as we know Gritty the NHL mascot is in perfectly fine health! This is a great example of what happens when clear well water that naturally has a high iron content fills a pool and is subsequently shocked with chlorine!

2 - An abandoned pool

Another story comes from Roy Vore. Roy was called out to a pool in an older and heavily wooded neighborhood to help the owner prepare it for sale. When he arrived at the pool, he found several inches of leaves, pine needles and sticks on top of a broken-down mesh pool cover. Beneath that, there were pounds of leaves and other decomposing debris in the murky brown water of the pool itself.  

A closer examination revealed thousands of tadpoles in varying stages of sprouting legs, a cracked skimmer and missing pump and heater parts. Through all of Roy’s cleaning and examination, the owner swore that the pool had been in functioning condition just one season ago.  

3 - Leaf this pool alone?

Our third and final story comes from Terry Arko about a job in Southern California. Occurring literally on Halloween, Terry was called out to clean a pool in a fairly rural area off the beaten path where he never met the owner. When he got to the old, rundown house that shared the property with the pool, he found a mess of tree limbs, patio furniture and leaves. He shared, “The pool was almost half-way full of leaves and debris. I knew there would be no way I could vacuum.” So Terry started manually removing the leaves until it was clear enough that he could check the pump and skimmer baskets.  

When he got to the dilapidated shed that housed the filter equipment, dodging spiderwebs and creepy crawlies, he found even more leaves and debris to clean out. Moving on to the skimmer basket, he found bugs, worms, more leaves and... something slimy? Terry ripped his hand out of the basket and watched as gurgling and bubbles began to emerge.  

To learn more about each of these stories, and to find out what was burbling and gurgling at Terry, read the full article by the Pool and Hot Tub Alliance!