A woman living in Repentigny, east of Montreal, came home to a pool party on Sunday after a family of five rented the pool through the Swimply app without the homeowner’s consent.

Repentigny resident Maryse Chaussé said she found a couple and their three children in her backyard after renting the pool through the mobile app, which allows users to rent pools by the hour.

“When we arrived, there was a car in the parking lot,” Chaussé told Noovo Info. “A small family with three cute little girls was swimming in the pool.”

This isn’t the first time this has happened. NBC Los Angeles reported in May that someone posted a Santa Barbara man’s backyard pool on the app to collect the fee – about a week after he listed his home for sale.

The couple explained to Chaussé that they paid about $35 to use the pool.

A woman from Repentigny had her pool listed on the Swimply app without her consent and when she returned home she found a family of five using it. (Source: Maryse Chaussé)
Chaussé told Noovo Info that she recognized the woman who placed the ad as a former tenant who moved out around 2022.

She now wonders if this is the first time that strangers have bathed in her pool when she is not at home.

“Is this the first time she’s done this? I can’t say. We’re not always at home,” she said.

A backyard swimming pool listed on the Swimply app was built without the consent of the woman who lives in the house. (Maryse Chaussé)

The ad said that parties were not allowed, but loud music, smoking and alcohol were OK. Pets were allowed, but owners had to dispose of their feces.

The ad disappeared from the Swimply app after Chaussé reported it.

She fears the situation could have been worse.

“The ladder was removed because I had just done a deep cleaning in the pool and then they put it back,” she said, adding that she could have done a chemical treatment that morning that the family would not have known about.

What to do and what not to do with a swimming pool that was offered for rent on Swimply without the homeowner’s consent. (Maryse Chaussé)

She contacted the Repentigny police, but was told there was nothing they could do because there was no criminal intent on the part of the family using her pool.

She is now considering building a lockable fence to completely block access to her garden.

Quebec’s private pool safety regulations state that “a swimming pool must be surrounded by a fence to restrict access.” The fence must be 1.2 metres high and must not have any open parts or areas that can be climbed over.

In an email to CTV News, Swimply said, “The trust and safety of our community is our top priority. We are committed to creating a safe environment for guests and hosts,” adding that the company “has a robust system in place to prevent, detect and respond to fraudulent activity.”

Chaussé had some advice for pool owners.

“Make sure you have 100 percent trust – and fences. And lock the door,” she said.

With reports from Noovo Info journalist Emilie Clavel and Christine Long of CTV News Montreal.