Nightmare Pools: True Stories from the Route

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Being attacked by a dog is nofun, and I've had a few run-ins

(02:37):
with dogs that I probably shouldnot have been doing the service
account.
And in hindsight, I probablyshould not have even accepted
these accounts because of thepersonality of the dog itself.
Now, if there's ever an accountwhere the customer says that
they have a dog that's vicious,it's bit people before, but

(03:00):
they'll put it away and makesure it's not out there when you
get there.
You're not 100% guaranteed thatthis won't happen.
The dog won't get out byaccident, they may forget to
lock a gate.
Something like this may happen.
So I would advise you to pass onthese accounts where the dog may
be vicious and trained toattack.
There was one incident when Ifirst started pool servers, I

(03:23):
was working for a company inUpland, and there they had this
dog, it was a Rottweiler thatwas trained to attack, and they
said they would lock it up everytime I was there.
Not a problem, I guess.
I didn't know any better.
I was just an employee workingfor a company, just starting
out, and the dog actually theyforgot to lock a side gate or

(03:43):
something.
And I'm walking back towards mytruck, and this is the days
where we didn't have vacuumsystems, and I had my manual
hose my manual vac head and mypool hose, and I was carrying it
on my shoulder.
And so I quickly dropped thehose to the front of me, like
use it as a shield, and I kindof just kind of walked forward

(04:03):
with the pool hose in front ofme, and I was pretty scared.
And the dog was kind of confusedbecause it probably never saw an
object before that had this, youknow, green hose in front,
walking towards it.
I guess dogs can't see colorthat well, and it I just looked
kind of weird.
And it and I had my pool polewith me on my side, kind of

(04:25):
using it as a you know, kind oflike a defense against it.
It didn't even try to attack me.
I think it was just confused andit was probably surprised there
was someone in the backyard, Ithink, because you know it it
never has the never had thechance to actually use the skill
that it was trained for.
And this was an incident, ofcourse, I got out of the yard
safely, thankfully, but Irealized that I don't want to do

(04:49):
these service accounts on my ownroute where the dog may be
vicious, and I didn't take anyaccounts where the dog was
trained, a trained guard dog.
But there were some sketchydogs, of course, and there
always are dogs that you kind ofworry about.
You know, they're really quiet,they're watching you, maybe
they'll sneak up on you.
Some of them will they kind ofrun towards you and then stop

(05:11):
almost like they're playingplaying attack.
And it's just one of thosethings where you have to be
prepared.
So I have pepper spray, I alsocarry this dog dazer device, dog
dazer 2.
It's an ultrasonic device.
You can push a button and thedog doesn't like the sound of
it, and that usually will stopmost vicious dogs.
Although I realize with a pitbull, it seems to make them even

(05:34):
more aggressive, they don't likeit, and they just go crazy.
And there's different things youcan have, like um the thing that
makes that clicking noise, likea the shocker thing, and it's
just one of those things wherejust avoid these accounts where
the dog may be suspect becausechances are they're gonna leave
a gate open, a kid's gonna comeout, dog's gonna fall behind

(05:56):
them, and chances are you'regonna get attacked.
A lot of my group members postthe dog bites they get when
these vicious dogs get out.
It's just not worth it to havean account like that, and it's a
pretty scary situation when adog's coming at you that's gonna
take a piece out of you.
This is a lesson I had to learnthe hard way, and there are
certain green pools that youshould just walk away from.

(06:18):
There's green pools that, in myopinion, just will take too much
time and effort and may not beworth that time and effort.
You know, if there's a anaccount that you take over and
the pool's been off for a year,the equipment is really old and
the customer wants you to clearit up.
And I've been in the situationwhere it was really old

(06:40):
equipment, the pool has beengreen for probably over a year,
and it just was a total mess.
And I took this green poolcleanup thinking that I can do
it because I've done other greenpool cleanups and you know
they've been successful.
And some things that I realizedis that the equipment, this is
before I I realized certainrules, and I'll back up a little

(07:00):
bit.
There's the first rule is whenyou walk up to the property,
assess the house.
If you know you're walking pasta driveway and there's a car and
cinder blocks, and then you getback there and the grass is up
to your knees, and you get tothe pool, and it looks like no
one's touched it for a year.
I would say, you know, just bidthat one really higher.
Just tell the customer, youknow, I really um don't have

(07:23):
time to do this pool this week,so if you want to call someone
else, you can do it.
I'm pretty booked up for thenext couple weeks.
Kind of just put it off becauseall those warning signs walking
up to it goes to show that thisis not gonna be a pool that you
know that was given attention,the whole property is not
attended to, and after youfinish it, it's probably not

(07:45):
gonna stay blue unless they hireyou on, of course.
But then there's a lot of redflags there to begin with.
I'm not saying you shouldnecessarily judge a book by its
cover, but if everything's in astate of disrepair, then the
attitude of the customerprobably is they don't care
about their house, their pool,and it's one of those incidences

(08:07):
where you probably should trustyour instinct and not take it.
But I have unfortunately takenon these pools before, and
another rule that I haveestablished is that the
equipment has to be decent forme to do the green pool cleanup.
So if I get back there and thefilter has duct tape on it, and
there's you know thosecompression fittings on the pipe
to keep it from leaking, and thepump looks like it's just it's

(08:30):
on its last leg, it's reallyloud and it's all rusted.
I really won't do the green poolcleanup there because I've done
these before.
I've had the pumps die in themiddle of the green pool
cleanup, you know, running 24hours, and the pump just turns
off, and then the customer'slike, hey, the pump's not
working, and what did you do tomy pump?
All these things are because thepool's been neglected for so

(08:52):
long, the equipment's beenneglected for so long, it's

(09:15):
really not worth$800 you'regonna charge, or$1,000 you're
gonna charge for it becauseyou're gonna be spending a lot
more time than you think, andthere's a chance that the filter
grids need to be repaid replacedor the cartridges, and the
customer's not gonna want to dothat.
And so, in this instance,definitely walk away from these
green pool cleanups thatprobably won't turn around

(09:37):
because of all these otherfactors.
So I've tried this before, II've attempted to do one.
I mentioned that the motor diedin the middle of the green pool
cleanup.
So then I got a rebuilt motorfor them, put it in there, and
then I realized that thecustomer was turning off the
pool because they didn't like itrunning so long because of the
electricity bill, and then Ifound that it just was

(09:57):
impossible to clear up becausethe filter was really old.
I told the customer they neednew grids, you know, they had
silicone patches on them, theyrefused to get new grids, and it
just got to the point where itmade it to like a murky
blue-green cloudy mess, and Ijust didn't go back.
I just told them that's the bestI can do with the situation and

(10:19):
the equipment.
They weren't particularly happy,but at that point I can't do
anything else because of thesubstandard equipment, and
truthfully, the customer wasn'tbeing helpful as well by turning
off the pump, not letting it runwhen it needs to run.
And this is definitely what Iconsider a green pool that won't
clear up.
Stay away from those.

(10:40):
You should know these fromexperience as you get more into
the industry, that this is apool you don't want to even
attempt to turn around.
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(11:00):
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I've been tricked before by thisalso, and this is something that

(11:23):
you learn over time that a poolwith trees around it, even if it
looks really good when you bidit, it may not look good either
in a windstorm or certain partsof the season.
For example, I've done manypools with eucalyptus trees
where I took the account itlooks great in the wintertime.

(11:45):
You know, this there's in the inthe fall and then you know when
you're getting into winter, andbut when you're getting into
summer, the eucalyptus treesactually start to shed their
leaves and their bark, and thepool is a total disaster.
So certain trees actually bloomat different times, and you have
to kind of know these treespecies.

(12:06):
I actually have a book in mytruck that has like different
species of trees, and I wouldlook them up just to make sure I
would know when they would beblooming, what actually debris
falls, because some of them,like I'll give you an example,
like a hacaranda tree, it's atree that has these really
pretty purple flowers and hasthese nice green leaves on them.

(12:26):
But if you don't know this breedor species of tree, when you
take on the account, let's sayyou take it on in January,
there's no flowers on it inJanuary, so you'll take on this
account assuming the tree is apretty clean tree.
But come May, all these purpleflowers start blooming, and you
may go back there and admire it.
Oh, this is a really prettytree.
But then in June and July, allthese flowers fall off, and then

(12:50):
shortly after that, all thelittle tiny green leaves fall
off, and they're really smalllittle particles that get
everywhere.
This is definitely a tree that'sreally messy.
And if you're out of seasondoing the bid, you may not know
this.
And it's something that happensto everyone out there.
I've had this happen again witheucalyptus trees, tacaranda

(13:11):
trees, oak trees, any treesaround the pool, you have to
assume that they're gonna have alot of debris at some point
during the season.
You know, the oak trees, thepollen in April and May is just
tremendous, and the whole poolis covered with this yellow
pollen.
The tile line has like a half aninch of yellow all the way

(13:32):
around it, and you'll know thisif you do these kind of pools
with these trees.
So any heavy any pool with atree around it or trees around
it, I consider has a potentialto be a heavy debris pool during
parts of the season.
And of course, if there's awindstorm, you're out of luck
because that pool is gonna betotally destroyed with all the

(13:53):
leaf debris.
It's not just the leaves thatfall, it's all the leaf leaf
debris and dead things in thetree that just sitting in there,
and then a windstorm or a majorrainstorm knocks all of that out
of the tree.
So just be aware that if you seea tree that's shedding a few
leaves here and there, andyou're not you're not worried
about it, eventually during awindstorm or a heavy rainstorm,

(14:17):
everything in that tree that'skind of just settling in there
is gonna fall into the pool andmake a pretty big mess out of
it.
So don't fall for the trap oftrees around the pool that look
nice and the pool looks cleanduring certain parts of the
season.
I can almost guarantee you thatother parts of the season it's
gonna be a pool that you're notgonna want to keep on your route

(14:39):
for very long because of theexcessive debris that's gonna be
in the pool.
Now I know that we do poolservice to maintain the pool and
to so that the customer can usethe pool, but there is an
extreme to this, and I've hadincidents where this has
happened where the backyard poolis pretty much like a commercial

(15:00):
pool.
They have some kids using thepool, and you may not notice
when you when you do the bid aswell, you know, you it looks
like a pool that's not used thatmuch, is pretty clean from the
last pool service, and you takeon the account, and you'll
notice a few times that the poolis kind of cloudy, and you're
kind of wondering what's goingon, and so you shock the pool,
you notice that the filter isgetting dirty or more dirty than

(15:23):
usual, and then you clean thefilter.
But one thing you you're notthere to realize because you're
there for 15 or 20 minutes aweek, and you may be there like
on a Thursday at 8 a.m.
where no one's using the pool,that this pool is an extremely
heavy use pool.
Now there are some giveaways tothis.
You have toys around, you havethis constant battle with the

(15:44):
cloudy water, and you also seesigns that the pool is being
used.
You know, there's you know,towels slaying around, there's
other debris from pool use, andyou realize at some point,
hopefully, that this is a poolthat is really heavily used,
almost to the point of acommercial pool in the
summertime.
They may have their neighborhoodfriends come in, you know, they

(16:06):
may start using the pool at 10in the morning, and even at some
point the customer may tell you,yeah, the kids really like the
pool, and all summer longthey're using the pool.
This to me is a account, and Iknow that you do pool service to
maintain pools for thecustomers, that makes sense,
that's your job.
But there are certain poolswhere there's just too much

(16:26):
usage, in my opinion, for theamount that they're paying you
for, and you may want to raisethe rate in these pools because
of all the extra work you'redoing.
The customer may balk at thatand change services, which is
fine, but there comes a pointwhere this heavy use pool is a
kind of a disaster on yourroute.

(16:47):
You know, there's algae formingsometimes in the summer.
Of course, you can use enhancersto kind of battle that, but
again, you're dealing with aresidential pool, maybe 15 by
30, 15,000 gallons.
So it's being used like acommercial pool where there's 10
or 12 people in the pool in thesummertime all week long.
And the pool is not designed forthat kind of usage, for that

(17:09):
kind of commercial usage,doesn't have the commercial
equipment, it's not running 24hours, and it's just gonna be a
real nightmare to keep clear.
I've had these pools before.
Once I realize that they'rereally heavy use pools, I'll
maintain them to a certain pointand then I'll do the
one-for-one.
When I get another account, I'lllet the customer know that I'm

(17:30):
consolidating my pool route andI can no longer service their
pool.
It's not that I don't want thework, and it's not that I'm kind
of shrinking from the poolservice providing pool service,
but there is a point where thepool is just being used way too
much for what it's designed for,and your pool service is not
really designed for commercialservice in a residential pool

(17:53):
setting.
So keep that in mind when youhave that.
Airbnbs are another one whereyou're gonna have problems with
heavy usage, and if the customeris not calling you or allowing
you to surcharge them for visitsnot on your service day, they
turn to pool and make sure thatit's good for the next customer
coming into the Airbnb, thenthat's an account that you need

(18:15):
to drop right away, andsometimes they're not even worth
taking on those vacation rentalsbecause of the heavy usage.
So that's just a few examples ofsome pools that I put in the
horror file or stay away from.
And if you can learn from thisand kind of avoid these pools, I
know when you're starting out,you kind of have to take every

(18:36):
single account you get, but asyou get more established, there
are certain accounts that youdefinitely want to start passing
on, and these are definitelysome of those.
If you're looking for otherpodcasts, you can find them by
going to my website,swingingpoollearning.com.
On the banner, there's thepodcast icon.
Click on that, there'll be adrop-down menu of over 1700

(18:57):
podcasts for you there as well.
And if you're interested in thecoaching program that I offer,
you can learn more atpoolguycoaching.com.
Thanks for listening to thispodcast.
Have you guys your week and Godbless.
This episode is brought to youby Hasa, providing products that
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(19:17):
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