Standing Water in Drained Pool

[dragonfly]

Hi! I am buying a house (pre-foreclosure short sale) that has a pebble tech in ground pool that was drained sometime a few months ago when the owners moved out. We will be filling the pool for inspections this week (to check out the filter system and because fha loan inspection requires the pool to be filled before approval), but there is some standing water, a colony of bugs, and some lovely algae at the bottom of the pool that I would love to get some ideas on first.

At this point, we plan to drain out the water and scrub down the pool before we fill it. The guy at the pool store (Leslie's) suggested just pumping the water out without working to kill the bugs and algae first, then just scrubbing the whole pool down with TSP. I am a bit concerned that if we don't kill off the bugs first that they will just come right back in once we refill the pool...not to mention stalking us as we scrub the thing down! Would adding bleach/chlorine to the water first before pumping it out kill everything off? Also, I thought that TSP was for calcium deposits... what exactly would TSP do for the pool while empty?

Mostly what I am asking is...what would you do with this standing water?

Thanks for all of your help!
Kara

[PoolDoc]

What I'd do, is what your service guy suggested.

If it makes you feel more comfortable, you can kill the bugs first. But they will be 'around' . . . or at least their relatives will . . . regardless of what you do to the ones in the pool.

TSP is a detergent, and is useful for cleaning up situations like yours.

PoolDoc

[dragonfly]

Thanks so much! I just wanted a second opinion, it helped a lot :-D