May 22. By Dave Yochum. If you’ve thought about renting your pool for fun and profit, Mecklenburg County Public Health is throwing cold water on the idea. Short-term rentals of residential swimming pools are not allowed even though there is an app called Swimply for people who want to rent pools by the hour, like what Airbnb does for short-stay home rentals.

However, in North Carolina, if a residential swimming pool is rented by the owner to generate income, it is no longer a private swimming pool.

Only a properly permitted public pool can be rented to or used by the general public, which are inspected every year, said Chrystal Swinger, Mecklenburg County Public Health Environmental Health Division director.

We dove in and checked it out.

On Swimply, the free app that matches pool owners and people thirsty for pool time, we found pools to rent by the hour in Davidson ($35 an hour), Huntersville ($60 to $75 an hour) and Charlotte ($28 to $100 an hour), but not Cornelius. Some of the homes seemed quite posh, while others were what you might expect in the suburbs.

Update: Having researched Swimply and the local listings, our Facebook news feed is full of Swimply posts.

Mecklenburg Public Health says they are working with the state to shut down illegal use of residential swimming pools which may include the initiation of legal action against the owner. It could also stop your insurance carrier from covering a slip and fall accident, for example, if your pool is used for commercial gain and you get sued.

Swimply screen shot