Keep Your Pool Party Plans Afloat with Clear Pool Etiquette Rules, Part 1

When the weather finally starts warming up, chances are you’ll be eager to open your pool for the season. To celebrate the start of summer, you may even decide to invite your neighbors, friends, and family over for a big backyard bash. Perhaps you’re super excited about the big event, but in the back of your mind, you’re a little nervous about something going wrong. If you’ve already planned the food and drink menu, got the pool chemicals perfectly balanced, the lawn chairs out, and the pool floats ready to go, what could possibly go wrong? Probably nothing, but there’s always the off chance that one of your guests could end up doing something dumb that turns your celebration into a catastrophe.

How do you prevent an unruly guest from sending your pool party fun down the drain? It’s simple. Shore up your pool etiquette rules. Make sure you clearly define what behavior is or is not acceptable in or around your pool. This isn’t a matter of being a pool party pooper, in spite of what some of these potential troublemakers may claim. It’s you exercising your right to be in control of what takes place while on your property to help ensure the enjoyment and safety of all your guests. The following two-part article series will lay out some rules you can implement for your pool party or for everyday backyard swimming.

Respect Non-Swimmers’ Boundaries

Some people get a sick pleasure out of deliberately dunking people who don’t want to get wet at a pool party. Their philosophy is that no one sitting within ten feet of the pool should expect to stay dry. As lighthearted as their mischievous intentions may be, these pool pushers could end up causing a major problem. There are often important reasons why people don’t want to get into the pool. These could run the gamut of anything from medical conditions, to fear of the water, to inability to swim. Regardless of people’s reasons for not wanting to enter the pool, they ought to be respected. Let your guests know from the get-go that this is one of the rules of conduct which you expect around your pool.

Keep Food Away from the Pool

Though the idea of lounging on a float with a snack and drink in hand may sound like a slice of paradise, it’s not a good idea to let people bring food with them into the pool. If you can’t figure out why, just imagine the fun you’ll have skimming chips from the pool tomorrow or finding half-chewed brownies at the bottom of the deep end when the party’s over. Yuck! So make sure your guests keep their food out of the water.

Save Science Experiments for the Lab

Some people, whether driven by their own curiosity or their desire to try to get their videos to go viral on YouTube, love to use the pool for scientific experiments. Be sure to make your guests aware of the fact that you have no interest in finding out what adding cola and Mentos will do to your pool or any other weird and wacky ingredients for that matter. Besides posing possible safety hazards, you don’t want to be responsible for having to clean up whatever messy substances may result from their ill-fated attempts at hands-on amateur chemistry.

If any of your guests give you a hard time about your pool etiquette standards, simply repeat the phrase, “My pool, my rules,” until they get the point or decide to throw in the towel and leave. In our next article, we’ll take a look at several more pool party no-no’s.

Lyon Financial

Since 1979 Lyon Financial has made the backyard resort dream come true for over 400,000 families across the U.S. Through our solid relationships with more than 3,000 pool contractors and our continued commitment to putting our clients first, we have built a reputation as the first choice in providing pool financing solutions. For more information, visit lyonfinancial.net or call (877) 754-5966 today.