A homeowner was left stunned when a conversation with his neighbour revealed there was a huge swimming pool in his back garden – and he had no idea he owned one.
John Reynolds snapped up a run-down three-bedroom home for just £15,000 when it was set to be demolished and he planned to simply do it up before selling it on for profit.
Three months into the renovation project, John got a call from from his neighbour asking if he had seen what the extreme weather was doing to the swimming pool.
“I said ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, I don’t have a pool’, and she said ‘yes you do’.”
The 35-year-old nurse was left ‘speechless’ when heavy rainfall shifted debris in the overgrown garden to uncover a huge 32x17ft pool.
And John has decided to keep the house in Texas for himself after falling in love with his daily swim – despite it now being worth £165,000 after 18 months of hard graft.
“It feels like I have stumbled across a winning lottery ticket,” he said. “Never in a million years when I bought the property did I think I would be swimming in my own pool.
“I bought it as a bit of an investment with the intention to do it up and sell it on, but it has yielded so many surprises I don’t know if I can let it go.
“My friends and I are in it every day for hours on end now. You couldn’t wish to find a bigger reward in your back garden.”
When John saved the property from the bulldozers two years ago, it had lay vacant for a year when the previous owner passed away.
It had been occupied by a hoarder for 20 years and was found filled with junk, an overgrown garden, and home to 100 feral cats.
Despite noticing that the garden was always particularly ‘boggy’ even in dry conditions, John dismissed the backyard as one of his last priorities.
It was only when a large rainstorm filled the pool to the brim that he became aware of the incredible hidden feature.
“I could see a bit of concrete edging but I just thought it was part of the patio or more flower beds,” he said.
“There was so much going on with the house, that little area was my last concern, but I did notice that it was always boggy despite the fact we hadn’t had any rainfall for weeks.
“When I went out you could just see the water line tile and the water was standing right up next to it. I was in shock.
“I thought ‘whether I live here or sell the house, I can’t leave it like this’. It took 11 months just to do the cleanup process and as the shell started showing I was waiting for a huge crack to surface but that never happened.
“When we got back down to the bottom of the pool I realised it was still in really good shape.”
John spent £7,500 repairing the pool, after removing old furniture, car pars and debris – and said it would cost £120,000 to build it from scratch today.
And the new pool is just one of the home’s little gems which means he’s now too attached to let it go.
“I used to drive past the house all the time and it always caught my eye because it had so much potential,” he added.
“When I finally bought it, it was so dilapidated you could smell it from two blocks away.
“Transforming it has been a labour of love, and I’ve decided it’s going to be my home now.”
This content was originally published here.
