Five On Your Side Helps Unlock Neighborhood Pool Problem

Proper construction and water quality safety are all parts of passing inspection. Sometimes, one little glitch can hold the whole process up. That is what happened in a Wake County neighborhood.

"I think that it's like when you're on a diet and you can't have that big piece of chocolate cake that you want. It's right in front of you and you just can't have it," resident Lisa Shemancik said of her locked neighborhood pool.

The pool in Fuquay-Varina's Ballentine subdivision was locked because it did not pass inspection. The problem was not the water. It was the pool's telephone.

The phone did not show the correct address when used to dial 911.The management company called Sprint repeatedly to get the problem fixed and were told four times that it was. But it was not fixed.

Neighbors and the management company were frustrated.

"If there's something else we need to be doing, we wish somebody would tell us and we'd do it in order to get everybody swimming in this pool," said John Stone of C.A.S. Management.

The management company called Five on Your Side.

Within hours of Five On Your Side's call to Sprint, the situation was fixed. While Five On Your Side was at the pool, a Sprint representative showed up to make sure the phone worked.

Sprint spokeswoman Leslie Letts blames the problem on a paperwork error -- basically, the correct box was not checked.

Now that it is all fixed, neighbors are thrilled. They are enjoying the pool and can be sure that if there is an emergency, help will get there.

The phone showed the wrong address for the last two pool seasons. Inspectors caught it this year because Wake County now requires the address and phone number be posted by the emergency phone.

The number should have been checked in the past, but the head of inspections for Wake County says this one slipped through the cracks.