Fish out of water.
A Canadian woman came home Sunday to find a family of strangers soaking up the sun in her outdoor pool, according to a report.
“We arrived and there was a car in the parking spot,” Maryse Chaussé told Noovo Info. “There was a little family swimming in the pool, with three cute little girls.”
The family of five told the bewildered homeowner that they had rented out the pool on Swimply — a mobile app that allows swimmers to lease private pools by the hour.
They had paid around $35 to take a dip in the suburban Montreal pool, but Chaussé wasn’t the one who put the listing on the market.
In spite of this, the listing looked completely authentic: it showed various pictures of the pool and outer deck taken from different angles, as well as the outdoor grill.
The description forbade parties but said loud music, smoking and alcohol were OK. Pets were also allowed, but the renters had to make sure they cleaned up any trace of the animals.
Chaussé called police, but was told there was nothing they could do because the family had not been acting with criminal intent.
According to Chaussé, the alleged perpetrator was a former tenant who had moved out of the home in 2022.
“Is this the first time she’s done this? I can’t say. We’re not always at home,” she said.
A spokesperson for Swimply told The Post that the phony listing was removed as soon as Chaussé reported it, but could not say how it was able to get posted without confirmation from the homeowner.
“Swimply has a robust system in place to prevent, detect, and respond to fraudulent activities. We partner with several best-in-class identity and fraud detection companies to ensure our platform maintains a high standard of safety and can be trusted by our community,” the company said in a statement.
“As with all marketplaces, bad actors sometimes attempt to misuse our platform. When a fraudulent listing is flagged to our team, we take immediate action.”
Other than frustration that a scammer was able to rent out her property, Chaussé said she had concerns that the situation could have been worse.
“The ladder was removed because I had just done a major cleaning in the pool and they put it back,” she said, adding that she could have done a chemical treatment in the morning that the family would not have known about.
The incident is not the first time pool squatters have used Swimply to rent out properties that didn’t belong to them.
In May, a California couple found out a stranger had rented their backyard pool just one week after they put their home on the market.
The couple only became privy to the scam when their pool caretaker spotted an unapproved pool party.
