As a landlord, there are important factors you need to consider before having your tenants move in to a house with a swimming pool. Likewise, as a tenant renting a house with a swimming pool, it is equally important to consider pool safety for you and your family. For both parties, having a swimming pool is highly desirable during hot Long Island summers, especially for families with children, increasing the desirability of the rental home for landlords.
For landlords, you may be liable for any injuries sustained because of the pool whether it is a tenant, house guest or even a trespasser. It is important that you have the pool fenced with a self-closing gate that locks. In addition to extra insurance to protect yourself in the event of an incident, you may also want to add an addendum to your lease with rules of the pool, including requiring your tenant to notify you immediately if the pool fence is not functioning properly or breaks.
Tenants who are renting a house with a pool should ensure the fence surrounding the pool is working properly. In addition they should also ensure all family members, especially children know how to swim and are educated with water safety. Tenants should also ask their landlord to install a pool fence, a self-closing gate with locks, pool alarm and utilize a pool cover. Finally, the most important thing any family living in a rental home with a pool should do is supervise the use of the pool at all times and never allow children to use it unattended.
New York State law states that a fence that is a minimum of 4’ high must obstruct access to the pool with a self-closing, self-locking gate that has a child safety locking mechanism that is 54” from the ground. The fence must not sit more than 2 inches above the ground. For above-ground pools, the barrier may be at ground level or mounted on top of the pool structure, however, if it is mounted on the pool the space between the top of the pool and bottom of the fence cannot exceed 4 inches.
Life Saver is happy to answer your questions on maintaining and repairing damaged swimming pool fence to maximize pool safety. Or if you need to install new pool fencing, contact us today at (516) 766-5336. While we are in our Fall season in New York, there is still plenty of time to have an installation performed.