A Spot of Sunshine in the Storm

Have you ever bought something sight unseen? Any person would tell you that it is one of the most dangerous investments, and its true. To a certain degree we made this mistake. You see when we purchased this house, there was a huge green tarp in the backyard covering a pool. Being that it was winter we did not see it and we assumed the tarp was over-sized. We were told it was maintained and in perfect working order, they even did some recent repairs to it. Unfortunately the sellers could not locate their receipts, so they included a 1 year warranty.

The warranty they provided was American Home Shield home warranty with the pool added. Now that warranty claims to cover non detectable pre-existing conditions, which it does not. When we removed the smokey mirrors the wall by the fireplace crumbled due to a leak from a radiator, which apparently was leaking for years. In order for it to cover non-detectable pre-existing conditions, you must prove it was in perfect condition when you bought the home. Sounds like that would cancel the whole point of it. For every person they send out they charge you $95 as well, and most collect the money and say they either do not do that sort of work or it is not covered and leave.

Needless to say the pool was not maintained. When we removed the cover it was full of dirty black water. No one had touched it in 5 years, which is how long this house has been vacant. The electricity to the pump wasnt working, the timer had been busted and was not even attached. We were scared. "Just fill it in!" Mother kept saying.

We gave AHS one more shot, which they claimed would be complimentary, yet we still had to pay. Once again the pool guy said we needed an electrician, and the electrician could not find the problem but took his money and went. We finally called an electrician on our own and in 15 minutes the power was working. We purchased a new timer and he installed it as well.

Now for the filthy pool. We drained it and tried to scrub it on our own.

 When that did not seem to be enough, we had it power washed. It still looked dirty and we were told we needed to paint it.

Luckily we ended up at a local pool supply place, and they knew our pool. Seems years ago they used to maintain it. They sent someone out who acid washed it, and got it all set up. Today they added the chemicals and our pool is open for the season. Of course the first one in to celbrate was one of our dogs, Prince Charming.

So even with a little drizzling rain today, we are enjoying a little victory. One more item up and running smoothly. And we learned our lesson and will not be using the AHS warranty again. When we told one of our state farm insurance people about our experience(He just bought a home as well), he threw his AHS policy in the trash. Well the sun is peeking out of its hiding spot again and I am heading back out to the pool with the dogs.