Over four years ago I wrote about meth heads stealing copper from air conditioning units. That nasty habit (stealing copper, not abusing methamphetamine) seems to be on the decline, probably due to laws that make it more difficult to sell scrap copper. Show up at a scrap yard with missing teeth and no ID and good luck hawking your ill-gotten booty.
A green pool isn’t a very pretty sight, so we shall walk you through the steps of how to clean a green swimming pool. At the same time, we’ll also include some tips for maintaining the clear blue waters of swimming pools in the future.
Resident thieves seem to have found a new target though ”“ pool cleaners.
Yeah, those little gizmos that crawl around your pool, vacuuming away dirt and debris. In theory, they help keep you pool sparkly clean and free of nasties. In reality, while they work pretty well, there are invariably spots they will miss and you (or your pool/cabana boy) will still need to brush and vacuum your pool.
Why are people stealing pool cleaners?
Because they are ridiculously expensive. Good luck finding a new one under $250. And believe it or not, you can spend $1,300 on one of these marvels of technology. For that price the thing better hand me a cold beer. (I stole that line from Kristin LaVanway.)
They are also a lot easier to steal than ripping copper pipe out of a wall or air conditioner. Pull it out of the water, roll up the hose and throw it in the trunk and you’re off. It’s that easy. Pool cleaners are always in demand because: 1) there are a lot of private pools in the Phoenix area; 2) they have a limited life ”“ 3 to five years is pretty typical; and 3) they appeal to our lazy, let’s automate the less fun things to do side.
At this moment in time a search of CraigsList for “pool cleaner” turns up 247 results ranging in price from $100 to $850. (of note, I’m not saying every pool cleaner for sale on CraigsList in Phoenix is hot. However, I can assure you some are).
Editors Note: If you need a pool cleaner in the East Valley check out Big Faimly Pool Service.
Relatively high cost + high demand + ease of thievery = targeted by the dregs of society.
What can a home owner do to Save the Sweeper?
Almost every incident I’ve been involved with around a stolen cleaner happened at a vacant home. In almost every case the gate to the yard wasn’t locked. Go get yourself a $6 padlock and lock your gate. That will stop the casual thief because they’ll just go to the next house down the street and walk right in the back yard. Of course it does nothing to deter the Spiderman-minded asshat who doesn’t mind climbing your fence to steal your property.
About all you can do to really secure your Kreepy Krauly is lock it up. The garage is the obvious choice; and put the hose in there too as that stuff is not cheap either. The drawback here of course is Mr. Clean can’t do his thing if he’s sitting in the garage. So you can dunk him from time to time (pool cleaners don’t really need to run constantly), manually vacuum the pool as needed, or get a pool service.
Or leave the thing in the pool and take your chances.
Take that road though and be prepared to fork over the cash for a new sweeper if yours goes missing before close of escrow. Pool cleaning equipment is included in the sale of a home (assuming the standard Arizona Residential Resale Real Estate Purchase Contract is used and lines 40 ”“ 41 aren’t altered). Trust me, it sucks to find out two days before closing that you have to buy someone a new pool cleaner for your old pool”¦
The Phoenix Real Estate Guy was started by Jay Thompson, and I have a little blogging problem... he liked to say...
Love it. Watch out for the “Spiderman-minded Asshats.”
+1. My favorite line.
That is the second instance I have seen in the last few weeks of you using “Asshat”. You may have a new favorite word. It is very versatile.
It’s a lovely word, and been kind of an asshaty sort of month… 😉
Thieves will target anything of value, even plumbing fixtures.
I once had the appliances stolen out of a vacant home and a furnace. Hard call to make to a seller, uh, someone stole your furnace. I think the word I heard was beyond Asshat, =)
It’s amazing, I would say 70 percent of the homes I inspect that are designed to have pool vacs no longer have them. Most of the time I assume the distressed property “seller” has sold it to assist with their rental deposits… But I am sure there is a percentage of “spiderman-minded asshats” out there that are swinging from the eaves of these places to make an extra buck too! People are ridiculous some times.
Never occurred to me that someone would steal that but I will make sure to inform my sellers next time here in Kentucky!
I’ve had that happen several times. Frustrating!!
A few months after we moved into our brand new home, our pool vac was stolen. It was a brand new neighborhood so the thieves just went from house to house and stole about a dozen new pool vacs that night. Guess craigslist was overloaded with pool vacs the next week! It is funny in retrospect but I know I didn’t appreciate it at the time. BTW that was the one and only time I ever had anything stolen – and it was a gated neighborhood. Never ever had anything stolen when I lived in a un-gated neighborhood!
Hi Jay,
Unfortunately, we have this problem over here in spain as well, with the current economic crisis, have it come a lots of thieves from the former eastern countries which make theft raids in residential areas and take everything that is not stuck.
If this keeps up we’re all going to end up living in mini-fortresses closed off from the outside world. Very sad.
Great post–you are definitely correct in that pool cleaners are being stolen and many people lave them unprotected outside (I mean, who wants to put them in their house?).
This seems like pretty good advice for home owners – especially since it could seem to defy logic to remove the pool cleaner from the pool if you aren’t even there to clean it yourself.
I have never had an incident where someone has stolen any of our listings pool cleaner. It does make sense why someone would want to steel it. Thanks for the heads up. We have had a washer and dryer stolen before. Good thing they work broken.