Who Is Stabbing Seymour’s Swimming Pools?

PHOTO: Jodie MozdzerSeymour police are investigating three reports of vandalized swimming pools in the town’s south end. 

In each case, an outer hose — leading from the pool to the water pump and filter — was sliced in half.

And twice, the vandals also sliced the pools’ interior liners, leaving more damage and causing all the water in the pool to drain out. 

At first, I said, is it personal?’ Then you find out there were others,” said Donald Nowell, a Manners Avenue resident who found his above-ground swimming pool vandalized Monday morning. It’s a random act. What kind of thrill are they getting?”

A South Main Street resident also reported swimming pool vandalism Monday morning, according to Police Lt. Paul Satkowski. 

There was another report of a different South Main Street pool vandalized last week, Satkowski said. 

And there’s potentially a fourth,” Satkowski said. We don’t have an official complaint on that one.”

Someone’s going into their yards where the pools are located and they’re cutting the hoses on the pools and slicing the liner,” Satkowski said. 

Nowell said a neighbor first told him there was a problem with his pool at about 11:30 p.m. Sunday. 

The pool water was leaking out of Nowell’s oval swimming pool and onto the street. 

Nowell got out of bed, and in the dark noticed a hose had come lose from the side of the pool. 

PHOTO: Jodie MozdzerI thought it’s an old hose, it’s plastic, it must have broke,” Nowell said. 

So Nowell turned off the pool’s pump and went back to bed. 

But when Nowell woke up Monday morning, he realized the pool hose had been sliced open, and that there was lots more vandalism around his yard.

I turned around to see the hose on the fence is cut too,” Nowell said. 

All the pool toys — sliced. Every one of them,” Nowell said. 

The entire 13,000-gallon pool was empty by Monday morning.

Nowell’s house is the gathering place for people in his tight-knit neighborhood, he said. 

The pool area seats up to 20 people, and neighbors are welcome to stop by if they see his gate open. 

All the neighbors are concerned,” said Nowell’s brother, Brian Nowell. 

The pool is enclosed by 6‑foot-tall fencing. 

They really wanted to get in,” Nowell said. It makes me nervous.”

He now plans to install surveillance cameras in his yard — and then eventually replace the pool, which he said cost him $5,300 to purchase and install.

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