The best thing about summer is swimming. The worst thing is not having easy access to a pool.

There’s nothing worse than sitting at home, sweaty and miserable, while everyone on your Instagram feed frolics at an exclusive members-only rooftop pool party or gathers for a barbecue and an Aperol Spritz at the home of some lucky person with their own private amenities.

If you find yourself in this situation in the dying moments of summer you can either wallow in self-pity or you can wallow in something else… Like a pool. That you’ve rented by the hour courtesy of the brand new platform Swimply.

Dubbed ‘Airbnb for pools’, Swimly connects homes with private pools and people desperate to cool off in the water but without their own facilities. Scores of jawdropping pools – from modern infinity numbers to cool, geometric designs – are available to rent by the hour on Swimply’s online marketplace. 

“We already are filling an unmet need for lots and lots of people,” co-founder Asher Weinberger told TODAY. “We’re democratising the process of owning a pool. Most people just can’t afford one.”

Already, Swimply has pools for rent in 26 states across the US and international locations including Mexico, Australia and Canada. When swiping through the options, users can zero in on location, design and length of stay, while hosts can regulate how much access to give pool users to their house – hosts have options to stay home during a rental or leave – and keep track of the number of guests, the presence of alcohol or pets and the volume of music being played.

In 2018, Swimply launched its beta test, with some 10,000 people going for a swim in the space of five weeks. In 2019, Swimply has expanded across the US and scaled up its operations. 

One host named Rachel Joseph told TODAY that Swimply had helped her and her family monetise a pool that usually lay dormant. “Our pool is nice but it doesn’t get used very much and it’s kind of expensive,” Joseph said. “It’s just me and my husband and eight month old baby. So we decided to do [Swimply] to keep the pool from costing us tonnes of money, and it makes me really happy to see the pool being used, because it doesn’t get used enough.” Joseph says she rents her pool for $70 and hour and will probably make around $3,000 on rentals this summer. 

If you ask us, this is the definition of a win-win situation. Hosts get to make money off their dormant swimming pools and everyone else gets to splash around for a few hours in the sun. 

Images: Unsplash