Customer ReviewsforMr Pool, Inc.

We contracted with Mr. Pool of Pinellas to put in an in-ground pool, and we were assigned Bob D***** as our contractor. Unfortunately, Bob is a manipulative liar who cuts corners, does shoddy work, provides abominable customer service, and is so incredibly incompetent that there is really no reason to ever work with him.
Manipulative Liar
• When selling his services, Bob promised over and over to have the pool finished within 8-12 weeks of starting. We started on 3/17/21; unfortunately, we did not finish for nearly 19 weeks (on 7/26/21).
• Bob also stated repeatedly that he was able to finish pools in 8 weeks because he only manages 3 pools at a time. However, if you look in the municipalities' permit systems he has 5 open permits with the city of St. Petersburg alone. In addition, we personally know 2 other pools he's doing for friends (neither of us knew we were using the same contractor until we all started having the same complaints!)
• Bob would not provide us with the pool tile book (where we could select pool tile) until after we signed the contract. It turned out that nearly every tile was an upgrade, so tile would cost more than we were quoted.
• In April, Bob came to us and said that unless we paid him $500 to expedite the concrete shooting process, our pool would be on a 3 week waitlist and no work would be completed. With no other options, we paid him the $500. We were happily surprised when the concrete crew came out to shoot concrete that same afternoon. We were then very unhappily surprised when his workers only showed up for a half day of work over the following 3 weeks.
• Bob continually lied to us about the status of our pool. For example, we called and asked about when the retaining wall would be put in. Bob assured us that it would be later that week. Next time we heard from him, he said it would be pushed to the following week (and so on with every step of construction). The only time he was ever in a hurry was when he was close to receiving a payment.
Cutting Corners
• Our designs called for an 18 inch poured concrete retaining wall. Bob first tried to use pavers instead of poured concrete, which is not a suitable foundation. He then came back and installed framing for a 6 inch retaining wall. When we called him and asked for the 18 inch wall that was promised, he replied 'I can't believe you're asking me to do that!' He gaslights his customers and acts like it is shocking to be asked to complete something that is agreed upon and paid for.
• After completing the retaining wall, his workers left some of the wood boards up since they were difficult to remove. He considered this "finished" and insisted that we pay him.
Shoddy work
• Unfortunately, the pavers laid on the patio were so uneven that we had to call him many times to get his guys back out to straighten them. They did eventually come back about 2 months later and did a better job than the first time. The patio was an embarrassment in that state.
• The contract states that the company shall not be liable for damage to grass, driveways, fences, etc. We read this and assumed that the workers would take reasonable precautions. However, over the course of the construction, our front yard, back yard, driveway, and fence were absolutely trashed. The workers would scrape our driveway (nowhere near the pool) with the bucket of the excavator, their old dump truck leaked oil all over our white driveway, and they destroyed our new fence. The workers pushed up so much dirt with the excavator and skid steer that it bowed our fence into the neighbor's yard. They also ripped the bolts off of the gate with the skid steer bucket and just pushed it back together without fixing or notifying us of the damage. Though the contract allows for it, this was clearly not typical construction damage. We understand that sod will be ruined, but the crew was grossly negligent.

Terrible customer service
• Due to the repeated delays, I called Bob about 9 weeks into the project to see what our updated timeline would be. He assured me it would be done within the promised 8 weeks (clearly it was not since we had already passed that mark). When I politely noted that we had passed the 8 week mark, he told me to stop being pushy, then hung up on me mid-sentence, called my husband and told him to "not sic his wife on him ever again." I never raised my voice and was just curious on what our plan was moving forward. I called Mr. Pool of Pinellas to address my concerns, left a message indicating that their contractor hung up on me, and never heard from them again.

General Incompetence
• Bob delayed calling in inspections, which prolonged the process. For example, after completing the plumbing, Bob waited a full week to call for inspection, even though we called and reminded him every single day and he assured us he would do it the following day. Even better, by the time he called for inspection, the pipes needed to be pressurized, so instead of sending out his team to do the work we paid them for, he called us and asked my husband to pressurize the pipes (which he did to help speed up the process).
• By the time our project was already behind, Bob decided to try out a new plumbing method and use a trenching machine instead of an excavator for running plumbing. Unfortunately, his workers had already buried the old patio stones instead of removing them, so the trencher ran into all previously buried stones. This method took several extra days. The workers were cussing and yelling so loudly that our neighbor actually stopped us one evening and said she was concerned since she overheard them screaming about blowing things up.
• Bob was 2 full pallets short of the pavers we ordered. About 75% of our patio done in cream pavers before he realized that he had run out. He called and told us that the pavers were out of stock. He then asked if we would be open to using a different color paver on our remaining patio, otherwise the wait would be 2 more weeks. We obviously didn't want one area of our patio to be different colored than the rest, so we settled in for the wait. The pavers arrived 2 weeks later. We looked at the manufacturing information, and it said they were made in March 2020, which clearly meant they were in stock when Bob told us they were out of stock. We don't know what he gained by this lie or if it was just utter incompetence.

Based on this review, I hope you steer clear of this company and give your business to a more reputable contractor. I would not wish Bob D***** or Mr. Pool of Pinellas on anyone. At the end of the day, though we did eventually get the pool we were looking for, the headaches, shortcuts, and us essentially taking over the project management made the whole process abysmal.