STOCKTON, Calif. — With her inflatable beach balls blown up and her swim tubes on standby, Stockton resident Lorene Yee is ready for her 3 p.m. appointment in her own backyard.
Yee is one of an estimated 25,000 private swimming pool owners who use the Swimply website to list their pools and backyard amenities for rent by the hour.
"I like the idea, you know, people want to rent my pool and I'm trying to help people out," Yee said.
The website allows owners of pools to list their bodies of water along with add-ons such as waterfalls, diving boards, lunch tables, fire pits, grills and speakers.
Pool owners set their hourly prices and schedules on the website and then customers sign a waiver and book their preferred time.
"I've got the refrigerator as a free option, I've got a plugin for their cell phones, I do have a little music thing that they can use," Yee said. "It was kind of weird the first time because you know, there are some strange people."
However, after a year of using the website to rent out her pool, Yee says she is now more comfortable with the idea of strangers using her backyard-- especially during times like this week when heat grips the region.
"I've always thought outside the box. I've always done what I want to do," Yee said. "It's clean, it's safe and I like what I do. Any way to keep somebody cool and stuff, because we are going to approach a lot of heat in the next week."
As temperatures rise, Swimply users like Yee often see an increase in bookings and interest.
For Bunim Laskin, Swimply's co-founder, more users on his site means more people beating the heat and more profit for the 2019 startup company.
"Triple-digit temperatures in California is Gotham and Swimply is Batman," Laskin said from his Los Angeles office. "It's obviously a meaningfully awesome thing to have, just to be able to tap and have your own aquatic paradise to enjoy during days like these."
In exchange for using its web platform and liability insurance, Swimply gets 15% of profits from pool bookings.
"It's taken some time for people to wrap their heads around it. It's brand new, it's fresh, the way a lot of things are," Laskin said "We have a pool in our office and it's been booked up, you can imagine, the whole weekend."
With four other swimming pools up for rent and competing for customers in Stockton, Yee says aside from making some money, listing her backyard for strangers is a way to keep the pool in use.
"My daughter's boyfriend likes to swim, but I like to swim more. So I'm the only one that really uses it like almost daily," Yee said. "It's an opportunity to have a private place because when you're in public, you're dealing with other parents, other kids and you don't have that option to keep that bully kid or whatever off your kid."
For those skeptical of renting an hour or two in a stranger's backyard, Laskin says the only way to test the website is to try using it.
"Over a million people have gone into stranger's backyard so far," Laskin said. "We take the quality and the security of our pools meaningfully safe, meaningfully seriously and so we don't really compromise when it comes to that."
Yee says she also doesn't compromise when it comes to safety and offers to serve as a lifeguard when young kids are present.
With pool toys ready to go and the water's temperature set at a cool 80°, Yee says she's excited to see more families and individuals make a splash in her backyard soon.
"Three is the max that I've done then I will shut it down on my app, then you won't be able to rent," Yee said. "So if you're wanting to rent, book it."
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