Okanagan pool industry teams up to help single mother

What first started as a small upgrade for her backyard soon turned into a year-long nightmare for Susan Broadfoot.

“A year ago, my neighbours were having some people putting a pool in and I just happen to be going by,” said Broadfoot.

“I met Lucas and Jay and I talked to them about replacing the deck around the pool.”

Broadfoot, a single mother and nurse at Kelowna General Hospital, appears to be the latest victim of an unfinished pool by Jarred Haymen and his company Pyramid Pools. 

However, this time, Broadfoot already had an existing pool.

“They said my pool was rusted out in the steel columns inside and eventually it will leak,” said Broadfoot.

Broadfoot soon found herself $32,000 lighter with a demolished backyard.

Much like previous cases Global News have covered, Haymen, Pyramid Pools’ owner, allegedly took the money and never completed the pool.

When asked about the project, Haymen denies any wrongdoing.

“We started it a while back, she had made changes along the way and she cancelled the contract and decided to go with someone else and stopped communication with me,” Haymen told Global News on Wednesday.

“She said she ran out of funding to finance the rest of the project and that she was all out of money, she didn’t have the money to complete the job.”

Broadfoot says she never said she ran out of money for the project and she went weeks with no communication with Haymen and Pyramid Pools.

That is when she decided to tell Haymen to not come back.

Owen Wlodarczak from Reflection Pools heard about Susan’s situation and wanted to help.

“Susan called us and she just wanted a quote to put a pool put in and we came and looked at the yard,” said Wlodarczak.

“Obviously, the pool was gone and she told us the story.”

Wlodarczak said there’s no way the pool was rusted and rotted as the lining had been replaced just a year earlier.

“I was astonished at that, because there is absolutely no reason to rip walls out,” Wlodarczak told Global News on Wednesday.

“I’ve seen pools 30-40 years old that are still fine and fixable.”

Owen and other numerous pool builders and supplier companies have come together to help the Broadfoot family.

“She was really upset and devastated by this and it was a significant amount of money, and we talked about doing a new pool for her, we discounted it for her,” said Wlodarczak.

Construction on Broadfoot’s new pool will begin sometime in the fall. Wlodarczak said she’ll be getting a pool for around half price.

She says although it is painful and embarrassing sharing her story, she hopes others take her case as a warning lesson.

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