At Anago, we are all about the CLEAN! From commercial offices, retail storefronts and restaurants to car dealerships, medical hospitals and religious facilities, we’ve forged an award-winning process for our Master Franchisees and Unit Franchisees to ensure all their customers work and play in a clean environment.

As we would love to spend this time with you talking about how great we clean, we feel it is of vital importance to share the one place you (or your kids) may spend a great deal of time at – and it, unfortunately, is not a place we currently clean – that is the swimming pool.

Whether community or private, there are a few things you need to know about swimming pools. Just like the soundtrack from JAWS instills fear of sharks in the ocean, think about what lurks beneath the great blue surface of your swimming pool:

1. Crap! From feces to bacteria to RWIS (recreational water illness) causing germs, swimming pools are full of bad things that can carry nasty pathogens like hepatitis A and E. Coli.
2. Bodily fluids – everything from sweat, dirt, oil and grime ends up in the water. Urine won’t harm you, but it counters the germ-killing effect of chlorine…COME ON MAN!
3. Cryptosporidium is the number one cause of pool outbreaks and is chlorine-tolerant. This is a parasite that causes severe diarrheal illness lasting for weeks and there is no cure or antibiotic, so you just have to deal with it (and imagine this person still using the swimming pool!).

These are just a few things and we’ll leave it to you to imagine the possibilities.

If you choose to brave the waters of your local community pool, or even the one in your private backyard, please take the following precautions:

1. Clean yourself with a nice fresh shower before getting into the pool. Remove that sweat, dead skin, left-over hair products and other hygiene products like deodorant before doing that cannon-ball.
2. Do not drink the pool water or take it into your mouth (if possible). It only takes a little bit of pool water to make you sick – especially at community pools or pools that are not properly chlorinated/maintained.
3. Read up on aquatic health codes which provides federal guidelines for maintaining public pools. Share those with your HOA or consider them when creating your own pool treatment program.

At the end of the day, we want all of you to enjoy the sun-filled days of summer including jumping into a nice, clean pool to cool off. Just be mindful. If we could clean pools the way we clean for our customers, there wouldn’t be a worry in the world – we’d say JUMP ON IN, the water feels great!