Hurricane Milton (I have service)

[willwill]

I know it's frowned upon, but life got in the way and i couldn't keep up with my pool.So I've had service for about 1.5-2 years now. Anyway, i live in land o lakes, so i have service and we got hit by the hurricane partially of course. Anyway, i have a lot of trees and spent a good 5-6 hours scooping and cleaning filters myself. My pool service had not come out this past week and showed up on Saturday. They stayed and did some work and chemicals etc.. And now i get a message from the owner..

My question is. Does this seem reasonable? My pool right now is still a little cloudy to be fair and so is the infinity trough, but it's NOTHING like it was. Now it's clearing out somewhat and probably does need more chemicals and cleanup. I don't deny that. anyway see images below for conversation.




I do genuinely feel like he's gaslighting me., but what to do? I have thought about replacing them previously because i thought my $130 a month was too much, but i quickly found out that prices were $175-200 for weekly service and then they increased it another $20 last year to $150 so i imagine prices increased since then

 

[ajw22]

They are doing what pool services do. The way they are going about cleaning up your pool are not the methods we recommend but they are typical pool service ways and they are doing what they know. We don't normally floc or remove phosphates.

Weekly pool service costs is for the bare minimum service. They do deserve to be paid for their time they spend at your pool.

If you want to roll up your sleeves and finish your pool cleanup yourself we can guide you. You may still want to use your pool service for specific tasks like vacuuming the pool if you do not have a good pool cleaner.

 

[willwill]

I agree with that, but it seems like he's giving me an ultimatum at this point. Pay the $500 or their service is done. Doesn't it? Replacing them would be my goal. but doing that right after the hurricane seems like more trouble than it's worth right now. heh

 

[ajw22]

I agree with that, but it seems like he's giving me an ultimatum at this point. Pay the $500 or their service is done. Doesn't it? Replacing them would be my goal. but doing that right after the hurricane seems like more trouble than it's worth right now. heh

I think everyone may be under a lot of stress. I would not read too much into what is written.

You authorized the payment he asked for. See how they respond when you have your next request for service.

Customers can fire pool service and pool service can fire customers. It is just business.

 

[Mdragger88]

They are just doing what is normal for pool services to do as AJ said.
although I don’t like the “we put floc in & wont fix it unless you cough up $$$”
The whole “we’re going to floc your pool” conversation should have been had beforehand and the procedure explained.
Generally its a bad idea to run floc through your filters. So you may have some issues if that’s what’s happening now.
That said, these are extenuating circumstances with the hurricanes and flooding so I can see that communication being missed especially if they normally just do whatever without your input. Most customers don’t care what they are doing so long as the end result is a blue clearish pool.
I can’t comment on the pricing as they are free to charge whatever they want for their services if people are willing to pay & they obviously have overhead/business expenses.
If you want to pay for them to finish the job (aka clean up the floc) then go for it but I would suggest you forego any more expensive phosphate treatment and request a detailed explanation of what will & won’t be done along with the cost before doing the work. When communication is vague problems arise.

 

[reggiehammond]

You'd be free to tell them to pound sand and that you're not paying anymore.
With a SWCG and a robot, I'm not sure why you wouldn't be able to survive without them as they're doing very little for you.

 

[Mdragger88]

I agree with that, but it seems like he's giving me an ultimatum at this point. Pay the $500 or their service is done. Doesn't it? Replacing them would be my goal. but doing that right after the hurricane seems like more trouble than it's worth right now. heh

I think hes more than likely just trying to plan his schedule and remove people who are hesitant to pay since they’re literally swamped right now. What he’s explaining in these messages is what should have been explained in advance of your last service.