Pool work glamorous? No. But for those who enjoy peace (and the occasional moment of weirdness), it’s easy to be . . . : Swept Away

In the suburbs of Southern California, where the untamed pool man is said to roam freely, the job of pool-keep is the stuff of legend. Life as a liquid janitor, the story goes, is a never-ending orgy of carousing and chlorine.

“Do you always live life like a beer commercial?” Kirstie Alley asks Mark Harmon in television’s paean to pool men, the 1986 movie “Prince of Bel Air.”

Not quite, answers real-world pool sweep John Magnus of Whittier: “The image of back-yard Lothario is pretty much an old wives’ tale.”

But not necessarily by choice.

“We’ve spent years learning how to open and close gates quietly, hoping just once we’ll come around the corner and find a voluptuous woman lying there naked,” confesses Ventura pool veteran Terry Cowles. “The truth is, most customers work during the day. . . . We hardly ever see anybody.”

Still, the job has its pleasures. For those who enjoy solitude, flexible hours and making up to $75,000 a year--and don’t mind inhaling lethal chemicals or handling various species of filter scum--it’s not a bad life.

Even when the work seems tedious, potential adventure is just a swimming pool away. In the back-yard waters of America, pool men have had to tangle with alligators, bowling balls and an occasional cow.

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Swimming-pool scholars trace the origins of the pool man to ancient Rome. The first “pool and spa service technician” probably was a Third Century slave who wielded a leaf net made of reeds and dumped copper coins into the water after noticing they killed algae, says David Dickman, editor and publisher of Service Industry News, a twice-monthly trade paper for guardians of the cement pond.

Modern Pool Man evolved in Southern California after World War II, when the advent of sprayed concrete sparked a boom in pool construction--and left a chlorine-illiterate public clamoring for professional help. By 1961, free-lance pool sweeps were such a fixture in the San Fernando Valley they formed a trade group to cover each other’s routes in cases of illness.

In those days, “all you needed was a pole, a net and a few gallons of chlorine,” says Joe Sanders of Van Nuys, a Czechoslovakian immigrant who bought an old blue pickup truck in 1963, taped signs to the doors and became Starlite Swimming Pool Co.

Now, service trucks are stocked like rolling chemistry sets, their owners worry about ultraviolet rays and the entire industry is hopelessly divided over the issue of tuxedos.

The formal-wear fracas erupted in 1988. That year, a summit was called in Santa Barbara to negotiate a merger between two rivals, the Independent Pool Servicemen’s Assn.--which had spread from the San Fernando Valley east into Arizona--and a splinter faction called Cal-IPSA.

Peace in the pool-service industry was finally at hand.

But it didn’t last. When the new Independent Pool and Spa Service Assn. switched insurance carriers and began wearing formal attire to official banquets, dissident members broke away and formed the tuxedo-free United Pool Assn. “We’re just simple working guys, trying to do our jobs,” they explained. “We don’t put on airs.”

As simple working guys go, however, pool men can lead pretty comfortable lives. More than half earn $30,000 to $75,000 a year, says Service Industry News. And the typical work week runs 30 to 35 hours for about 50 clients. The most business is in California, home to 920,000 swimming holes, and in Florida, with 700,000.

Ex-cowboys, grounded air-traffic controllers and former corporate big-wigs have all gotten into the act. So have women (although the field is still 90% male) and a lot of recent immigrants. Most learn the trade as apprentices; some take courses at maintenance schools. After that, there’s a blizzard of business licenses, environmental regulations and, in L.A. County, health department permits.

Then things get tough. In Southern California, roughly 7,500 service people ply the waterways. And with local pool construction dried by recession and drought--and many owners handling maintenance chores themselves--about the only avenue for new business is to buy an existing route (often $30,000 or more) or start a price war.

The latter practice, popular among recent immigrants, has stirred considerable resentment in the industry, says Dickman: Some accuse the newcomers of low-balling. Because service fees in Los Angeles are already the lowest in the nation ($55 to $65 a month versus upward of $160 in some states), anyone billing less is suspected of cutting corners or making up the difference through unnecessary repairs.

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On the surface, cleaning pools seems tedious: Add a few chemicals, unclog the filter, scoop a few leaves. A good pool man can even pluck a dime off the bottom of the deep end using nothing but a twist of the elbow and a telescoping net called a leaf rake.

A horse, however, is another story. Two years go in Kansas, a tornado deposited an equine life form in someone’s back-yard pool. In other states, pool men have retrieved alligators (which will climb chain-link fences to find water), cows, bats, TV sets, bowling balls, underwear and the door to a Volkswagen.

Service Industry News has a standing invitation for “Gee, Mabel, look what I found in the pool” items submitted by readers. Among the entries: a chlorine truck (no need to add chemicals that week), a wayward beaver (removed before it built a dam) and a woman in labor (she saw an article about underwater delivery and hired a spa-side midwife).

On other occasions, the pool men themselves end up in the drink. Sometimes the plunge is accidental--as when Sanders fell into a new client’s murky water, crawled out and found his boots filled with fish (which the client mistakenly believed would eliminate algae).

And sometimes the plunge is unavoidable--as when a hungry Rottweiler stranded Magnus’ friend in the shallow end for several hours. Nowadays, however, computer-savvy chlorine kings can buy special software that includes a chart to list the names and temperaments of clients’ canines.

The software does not mention ducks. Migratory fowl, it seems, are not particularly discriminating when it comes to places to live. If they cannot find a golf course, they settle for a back yard. And inevitably there is a showdown.

“Either they go or I go,” Magnus tells customers who adopt the wandering web-foots. Duck droppings wreak havoc on water chemistry, he says.

A few pool men show more tolerance for wildlife, but their altruism is not cheap. When a flock of birds moved into a Cerritos condominium complex, tenants had to pay for two extra service visits per week.

In the absence of such obstacles, a typical pool on a typical visit (once a week) needs 10 to 20 minutes of attention. But sometimes the pool man lingers.

Jim Burkhalter of Long Beach remembers one home that was particularly distracting: The client owned a nude bar and regularly invited his dancers over to lose their tan lines. “I’d go in, do the job, then go to the next place and jump in the water to calm down,” says the 20-year veteran.

Most such encounters, however, are abbreviated. “You see fleeing bodies and slamming doors,” he says.

Pool-man-to-the-stars Sanders and his son once stumbled across an actor and his girlfriend in lustful embrace on a lounge chair--and were given a whistle to announce themselves on future visits.

The proper etiquette in such situations--according to a Service Industry News article titled “What do you say to a topless sunbather?”--is “rattle the gate, drop a brush . . . (or) call out in a pleasant voice, ‘Pool service!’ ”

But that isn’t foolproof. “Nowadays, you tend to get gals lying out there with a Walkman on,” says Magnus. “You have to run up, tap them on the shoulder real quick, then turn away and say ‘I’m here to do the pool.’ ”

If they don’t cover up after that, says the article, go ahead and do your job. But “please be advised to first check with your wife, girlfriend, rabbi, priest, minister and attorney.”

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Pool men face other perils, as well.

One is “popping.” When a swimming pool is drained and subterranean water tables are high, the pressure from below can pop the pool out of the ground, says Dickman. In Cypress this spring, a homeowner emptied his pool to fix a broken light, left it drained overnight and woke up the next morning to find it sticking several feet out of the yard. The $7 light ended up costing $20,000. The “popped” pool had to be removed and replaced.

Pool men have been known to make the same mistake. And they get stuck with the bill.

Others pay an even higher price.

A handful of pool men have died bumping their 16-foot leaf rakes into overhead wires. But many perish more slowly, breathing fumes and dust from the powders and pills of the pool man’s arsenal. It’s like lugging around a little Love Canal, they say. The acids, buffers, bromine and chlorine disinfect the water and kill algae, but they also eat clothing, sinuses and anything else that gets in the way.

The sun, too, exacts a heavy toll. Sanders has skin cancer gnawing his arms. Burkhalter knows colleagues who have lost noses and ear tips to tumors. And Dickman says melanoma is so common in the profession that an American Cancer Society booth is a regular feature at the popular Western Pool and Spa trade show.

For younger pool men--about half in California are under 40--the only hope is sunblock with “an SPF of 1 million,” says Dickman.

Magnus, 39 and a 10-year veteran, says he tries to wear it every day: “I’ve got too many friends who’ve been in the business twice as long as I have who have big spots from melanoma.”

Considering all the risks, it might be nice if customers paid their bills. But, alas, some don’t. Magnus shrugs it off: “That’s part of dealing with the public.” But other pool men aren’t so forgiving about being stiffed.

In Covina last year, one slipped into a deadbeat customer’s back yard, kidnaped the pool filter and held it for ransom.

The client eventually paid, but if he hadn’t, it’s doubtful the pool man could have put the filter to use.

Few in the business own pools, says UPA president Roger Marshall: “It’s just too much of a hassle.”