this site looks like welcome relief for a first-time-pool-owner trying to find pool info other than articles written by pool dealers.

When I first looked at the house in Feb the pool was immaculate. It was a short sale which means it took until now (4 months later) to actually get the house. Althought they were supposed to keep the pool maintained it hasn't been touched since then, so the water level has dropped some 4 feet and the water is so green you cannot see the bottom even at the shallow end. The exposed sides are covered with baked on debris under the hot Nevada sun. We can't even see if the pool light is working because of the gunk. Going to post photobucket pic links, not sure if I have the right privileges yet.

So, other than calling in an airstrike and starting over, what plan of attack can you recommend? Since I need to eventually learn how to maintain a pool, I'd like to try this myself rather than call a pool service, at least for now.