"Mommy someone stole the pool."
"Oh hunny how many times have I told you quit making up stories. Its not possible the pool is ancored in the the ground."
"But mommy, I'm not lying."
Thieves Steal Built-In Swimming Pool
Mon Feb 21,10:29 AM ET Europe - AP
OSLO, Norway - A Norwegian family's swimming pool wasn't just bolted down, it was in the ground, but that was impediment to a band of determined thieves.
When the Nicolaysen family visited their mountain cabin over the weekend, they discovered a big hole in the yard in place of the swimming pool that had been installed 20 years ago.
"This can't be, we thought," Arild Nicolaysen told state radio network NRK on Monday. "We didn't think it was possible. No one can steal a swimming pool."
Evidently, someone did.
At some point between early November, when the family closed up the cabin for the winter, and the weekend, their pool, 16 feet in diameter, and all its equipment was uprooted and stolen.
"It must have been a terrible job to disassemble such a big pool. There is a steel lining all the way around, plus there is a plastic liner and then there was a skimming system, a filter system and a lot of big hoses, and pipes," said Brit Nicolaysen, who owns the cabin with her husband.
"They must have had a whole lot of time," she said.
Brit said no one, not even the police, believed them at first.
Police said they had never heard anything like it. They suspected the pool was taken for someone's private use, since there's not a market for 20-year stolen, in-ground pools.
