I bought my first house with a pool (in ground 30ft. x 15ft. x 6ft. no screened inclosure) The pool was left untouched for 3 months with the pump turned off and became what looked like a swamp. I am getting it back in order now. I'm at the point where I was able to see the bottom and scoop out leaves and gunk with net. I had to replace the cartidge filter because the bands were broken and it was no longer filtering. I bought the $90 filter and within one week the filter is clogged to the point where there is almost no flow coming out of the jets. I removed filter to run pool pump in an effort to trouble shoot and the flow was full blast again so I figured It must be the filter. I tried soaking it in the cartridge cleaner solution twice and that helped a little (otherwise I have been cleaning filter with hose daily through this process). The filter is clogged again a day later but appears to be clean. I noticed there is a small accumulation of sand in the pool form blowing out of the yard during the 3 months the pool was neglected (Florida yard which is partially sand). The pool place tells me the new filter is ruined because the sand gets caught in the pleeds of the filter and cant be removed. Does anyone agree with this?. I'm being told to vacume sand with filter out and filter housing cover off to let sand (and several gallons of water) dump into the yard until sand is gone then buy a new filter... does this sound correct as well? Any help is greatly appreciated!. Thanks