For folks facing another broiling L.A. fall without access to their own swimming pools, the Airbnb of aquatic relief is here. A website called Swimply will now allow you pay by the hour to rent someone else’s pool, the Los Angeles Times reports.
Swimply co-founder, 22-year-old Bunim Laskin, said he got the idea while trying to find things for his family to do in the unrelenting summers of his native New Jersey.
“Being the oldest of 12 kids, finding an affordable way for my family to leave the house and spend time together was very difficult,” he told the Times. “We saw that our next-door neighbor’s pool was empty a lot, and so I asked her if [we] could use it.”
Laskin’s family agreed to pay 25 percent of their neighbor’s pool costs that summer, which HomeGuide says amounts to a total of $80 to $150 a month. Swimply users, however, negotiate an hourly rate. A quick search for pools in L.A. available this coming Saturday shows that most rent for between $40 to $100 an hour.
Pool owners post pictures of what amenities they have to offer, along with setting prices and restrictions, such as limits on the number of guests, while Swimply takes a 15 percent commission. The hosts are responsible for their own insurance, and are required to have their pools inspected for health and safety, including checks on tiles and chlorine levels.
Tania Campos, a resident of Koreatown, recently rented a homeowner’s pool near Beverly Hills to throw her mom a Hawaiian-themed birthday. “Not everyone in L.A. owns a home, especially with a pool,” she said. “The service gives us the opportunity to enjoy, even if it’s for a few hours, to be in a swimming pool and relax.”
If $100 an hour sounds steep (because it is), L.A. has a bunch of year-round public pools for your swimming pleasure.
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The post Overheated Angelenos Can Now Consider Renting a Swimming Pool by the Hour appeared first on Los Angeles Magazine.