West Nile Virus. If you haven’t heard about it lately, you haven’t been paying attention to the news, because this year marks the most cases ever reported in the United States since the infection first showed up in 1999.
How many cases are we talking about? Just under 700 people have been diagnosed, and – even worse – 26 have actually died from their symptoms.
How does it keep spreading? And why can’t medical experts seem to get rid of it? This may come as a surprise to you, but the answer might be as close as that unused pool in your backyard.
It might seem strange to blame a swimming pool for a dangerous virus like West Nile, but consider this: the sickness is transferred to humans by mosquitoes. Those same mosquitoes need to lay eggs to continue the species. Where do they do that? In stagnant pools of water. That can mean rain water that accumulates in abandoned car tires, bird baths, small ponds… and unused pools.
This very thing is what caused that original West Nile outbreak in Queens, New York, in 1999. People had stagnant pools sitting around, and they were perfect incubators for baby mosquitoes.
You could go to the trouble of hiring someone to clean up your old pool and start maintaining it again, but if no one is using it, why would you waste that money? Luckily, there’s a better option out there that will prevent your backyard from becoming a breeding ground for mosquitoes: you can have the pool removed.
Pool removal may seem like a big expense at first, but if you actually calculate how much money you would be spending on maintenance (or the risk you run with West Nile virus by letting it stagnate), you’ll make back that money in no time. Even better, you can finally get your yard back!
Maybe you’ll decide to add a garden. Or a deck or patio. Or maybe you’ll just keep the grass green to give Fido a nice open space to run around in. The point is, if you remove your pool you open yourself up to a lot of options while reducing your monthly costs and protecting yourself from the nasty things that can come from unused, stagnant water like the West Nile virus.