The Green Monster Next Door...

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J

jamis

0
Jul 18, 2014
49
Toledo, OH
Hopefully, I'm in the right forum. If not, Mods feel free to move this. Here's the scenario to my question. The neighbor next door has a 16x32x8 IG vinyl pool that has been derelict since last fall. Right now, it's about half full of totally opaque dark green/almost brown water. According to the bug zapper on my fence, it's also a mosquito breeding pond. The owner won't spend $2,600 to have a new liner put in, so it's going to sit like this for the foreseeable future. Now for my question.

My pool sits roughly 10 - 15 feet from this slime pit and is directly downwind from it. Can my pool be affected by its neighbor? I know sounds far fetched, but I'm curious if it is, I want to be armed for a possible health code violation claim against the owner.
 
In many locations, you can not leave your pool like that. I would call the city and see if you can report them. At a minimum they will have to start adding mosquito dunks to prevent them from growing. Some place actually put fish in the water to eat them as well.

Pretty sure that their pool should not be able to affect your pool.
 
Richard320 said:
I don't know if algae spores can be airborne.
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I know this probably would never happen, but suppose some leaves that were floating in the neighbor's pool got airborne and landed in his pool. He says he's only 10 or 15 feet away. I would look into your municipal codes as I don't think most places will let you have a pool and neglect it like that.
 
mickey4paws said:
I know this probably would never happen, but suppose some leaves that were floating in the neighbor's pool got airborne and landed in his pool. He says he's only 10 or 15 feet away. I would look into your municipal codes as I don't think most places will let you have a pool and neglect it like that.
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Yes, it is in violation of the local health code and both the health department and the TASD know about it now. I'm more worried about my pool, not his.
 
Just my .02, Since He is your neighbor wouldnt it be best if you went and talked to him first. I mean before you get the authorities involved shouldnt he have the chance to do right?
When I was a younger man I lived on the side of a mountain. At some point my leech field broke out and a little nasty stuff was slowly running down the hill. I had no idea that it had happened. The way I found out was the county knocking on my door, I was more than happy to fix it, because I dont want to live like that. However my "neighbor" called the county instead of knocking on my door. Granted your neighbor has to be aware that his pool is beyond nasty, but he may not be considering how it affects you. Seems like the best thing to do is to ask him to do something so you dont have to live with the mosquitoes.
If that doesnt work I would call the county.
 
ranger: I have talked to him, many times. We have discussed it at length. He asked me to look at it to see if I could tell where it was leaking. I'm pretty sure he has ants that have eaten weep holes in the liner at the base of the side walls. I had this happen to mine two years ago and I told him what had happened and how we corrected the ant problem when we replaced the year old liner. He ignored the potential problem. He knew the pool was bogus last fall. It sat nearly empty all winter and the liner was unhooked from the coping most of the way around the pool. He did nothing about it all spring this year. Even left the winter cover dangling into the nearly empty pool all winter and half of the summer. He didn't even contact any pool companies about it until everyone was booked for the year and then got out of shape because it was going to cost $2,600. He said he was going to fill it from his hose, even though it leaks and just put the couple of inches of water in it every day and deal with it later. He filled it, it lost 8 plus inches of water the first day, so he left it and went on vacation. I think I've been pretty tolerant.
 
IMG_0835.jpgThis pool has been next door to us for 24 of the 25 years we've had our pool. I've never had an algae issue until this summer when the green monster was born. Here's what it looked like today. I wish the picture was clearer, but I didn't want to trespass.
 

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Wife found some references on line that indicated that algae can be spread by air. I'll buy that as this is the first time in 25 years of pool ownership that we have had algae this bad and it's the first time in 24 years that the pool next door has had algae as bad as the photo shows. I guess I'm going to have to keep my FC higher than I have in the past after I get my pool back to its normal water quality.

Also, notice in the above picture, the corner patch job. That corner was torn from being pulled out all winter and spring. The owner tried to patch the tear with some scrap liner. Yes, that blue tape on the patch joint is blue painter's tape. Any wonder why it leaked 8 plus inches of water the first day after filling?
 
Jamis, I am sorry about the state of your neighbors Pool and the predicament that it puts you in. If it was me I would definitely run my FC at the top of range for my CYA, I would also be out brushing almost every day. I would ask/tell my neighbor again that I have to have some relief from his mosquito pit. (I might word it a little gentler than that but would certainly make sure he knew I did not want to live next to his witches cauldron). I feel for you and wish you the best of luck in getting through this. Let me know how it goes.
 
Dang jamis! What an awful patch job... :shock:

Hope the county goes after him and forces him to clean that up, replace the liner or fill it in, although I'd hate to see a good pool die a dirt death! He obviously does not care about the pool or anyone's health because of the pool and breeding ground for diseases. :thumbdown:
 
Well, we are starting day 3 of the SLAM and our pool is slowing getting better. Someone took the painter's tape off of the patch yesterday. I didn't see it happen, but it's gone now. The homeowners are not home (still on vacation), so I'm assuming who ever is watching the dogs did it.

Addition: I blew up the photo I took and I was wrong about the tape. There never was any. It's just a piece of liner hanging in the corner and not sealed to the old liner at all. My mistake.

Question: When that mess next door is pumped out, should all of the exposed vinyl be scrubbed and washed to get rid of any residual dried algae? Or is it going to stay until the old liner is removed in its entirety?
 
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Day 5 and the FC & CC are a bit high and that should come down on its own. Ph and TA are a bit low and I adjusted for it. CYA is nearly dead on. We'll see tomorrow what things look like.

Green monster next door is still ugly and it is still leaking down. It's about 6 inches from being back down to where it was when he filled it before leaving on vacation. This means the algae is concentrating in the deep end hopper. Leak down will stop when the water level reaches the bottom of the sidewalls. Neighbors came home from vacation Sunday afternoon, but haven't done anything with the slim pit. TASD went by this evening and sprayed the neighborhood for mosquitoes. They found a bunch of them on the other side of town (up wind from me) carrying West Nile Virus. The local news is telling everyone to eliminate all standing water on their properties.
 
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The water level continues to drop, more slowly now as there is less pressure on the leak points. The liner is begining to unhook itself from the coping around the sides as the water level drops. If they don't make any effort on the pool this weekend, I'm going to try the city inspection department on Monday. My pool remains clear so far, but I'm vacuuming and testing daily. I've never had to do that before.
 
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I decided not to wait until Monday as TASD found West Nile carrying mosquitoes less than 5.5 miles upwind from our neighborhood yesterday. That's a third of the distance from the previous report. Local news channels are repeatedly telling viewers to remove standing water from their properties. I called the city's nuisance reporting department today after the inspection department told me to call city hall.

Update: TASD found a second batch of West Nile Virus mosquitoes 5 miles from us. Also, the liner floated off of the bottom this afternoon in the shallow end. Home owners are sitting in their driveway in the front of the house watching the grass grow.
 
Jamis, Can you post a full set of test results on your pool? You noted earlier that your FC and CC were high.
 

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