[tenant Us-az] Landlord Wants To Fill In Pool Instead Of Fixing It — Is That Allowed?

Location: Chandler-AZ

Hi everyone,

I’m dealing with a situation with my rental in Chandler, AZ and not sure what my rights are here.

My boyfriend and I moved here from Georgia in November 2025 for his job. When we were looking for a place, my one requirement was that the house had a pool. It’s something I’ve always wanted, and we only looked at houses with pools. The lease also includes the pool and we pay higher rent because of it, and pool maintenance is supposed to be the landlord’s responsibility.

I started using the pool pretty regularly. Around December I started getting rashes but thought it was just the dry weather here. A few weeks ago I got really sick (rash, swollen lymph nodes, etc.) and even went to the ER. They couldn’t figure out what it was.

My boyfriend suggested testing the pool water since I had been swimming almost every day. I tested it on March 21 and everything was way out of balance, so I put in a maintenance request right away.

The pool guy comes every Friday, but I’ve honestly never seen him test anything, he just adds chlorine tablets and skims the pool.

On March 25 I had another pool company come look at it and they told me the water was basically “dead” and needed to be drained and refilled. I sent that to the property manager and she got upset that I called someone out without permission.

Their pool guy came on March 26 and just dumped a bunch of chlorine in. I waited a few hours and then took a sample to Leslie’s Pool Supply and the numbers were still really bad (high chlorine, super high calcium, high CYA, etc.). They also told me it needs to be drained.

I sent those results in again and was told to “give it more time.”

Now I just got an email saying the owner is thinking about permanently filling in the pool with concrete and lowering our rent by $200 (we currently pay $2800).

I already told them I don’t agree to that. The pool is the main reason we rented this house in the first place.

So I’m trying to figure out:

• Can they remove the pool if it’s included in the lease, without my approval?
• If they don’t fix it, is that considered a breach?
• What can I actually do if they just leave it unusable?

I’m not interested in a rent reduction, I just want the pool fixed and usable like it was supposed to be.

Thanks in advance.