The Safety of Swimming Pools in Your Apartment Complex

Word of Caution to Apartment Renters

It’s happened time and time again. You turn on the tube and right at that moment, an aerial shot of a pool at an apartment complex comes on the screen. The scenario is never too far off. You can put the newscast on mute and pretty much predict the outcome. A child, left alone or not properly supervised, manages to drift away into the alluring attraction of the community pool.

The scene is heartbreaking but after the smoke has cleared, fingers start pointing. The residents seem set on directing their wrath towards apartment management, accusing them of faulty or poor maintenance such as improper enclosure. Whatever the case, steps need to be taken now if lives are to be valued. 

Drowning deaths occur everywhere, whether it’s at the beach, lake, residential home etc. but drownings at apartment complexes seem frustrating due to poor preventative measures

Jim Sopher, Chief of Texas Department of Health’s (TDH) Recreational Sanitation Branch, warns, “A child can drown in the time it takes to answer a phone and in as little as 2 inches of water.” That is why an investigation into apartment pool safety was deemed necessary and what they found raised warning flags.

In several Southwest Houston apartments, they found fences in deplorable conditions with broken links and safety latches nonfunctioning enabling easy access. To combat these findings, there have been recommendations for public pools to provide better safety measures for its tenants.

One of the measures calls for trained, qualified personnel to perform maintenance in order to prevent accidents. Regular checks will guard against incidents such as entrapment where an individual may be caught by the drain and the pressure is just too strong to break free.

Routine maintenance would be a welcomed change for some apartments with pools that look like the community wastebasket with all sorts of object, not worth mentioning, floating around.

Also, pools should be completely fenced with self-closing and self-latching gates far out of the reach of children. Why it isn’t tended to in the first place is beyond anyone’s guess. Charles Branton, Director of TDH, says, “The most important steps in preventing children from drowning or being injured are to stop unauthorized access to the pool.”

It’s a tragedy that lives have to be taken before actions are enforced. Steps such as restrictive enclosure and maintenance are a vital step in this move to combat child drownings, a problem that claims approximately 300 lives of children age 5 and under each year.

No matter the preventative measures taken to ensure safety, there is no substitution for close and attentive supervision. Until these changes are followed through by all, the newscast will serve as a painful reminder of our negligence.