Bloody loud kids in the communal pool all day, everyday.

[DavidBowiesNumber1]

We've recently moved into a new house on a small development - 20 houses, at present only 10 sold, of those 10 only 5 of us are permanent residents.
Not in the UK.
Up until about 3 weeks ago everything was peaceful, harmonious, pretty idyllic. Then the "holiday homers" arrived.
Now, out of the 5 nonresident households, 3 have lots of children ranging in ages of about 1 to 13 years old. Approx' 9 children between them but every day there are friends arriving to spend the day (and sometime night) at the pool.
Now I'm all for kids enjoying themselves and its lovely to see them doing something other than sitting indoors in front of a tv/tablet/phone/games console but AIBU in thinking that the parents (who are rarely at the pool) should A) be keeping an eye on them and B) be telling them to hush down a bit?
All we can hear from morning 'til night (up to 12.15am this morning) is the children shouting, screaming, jumping in the pool etc.
It's incredibly hot here (40c+ in the day, never dips below 32c at night) so all doors and windows are open therefore the noise carries everywhere.
If we want to use the pool we have to dodge bombing children/passing li-los/random balls and floats along with said 'DC'.
We would just like to enjoy our downtime and relax. Is that too much to ask?

Do you trail around after your child all the time at the pool, Jacques? Deep end to shallow end, finger to lips? Off the diving board, finger to lips?

Or are you sensible?

I accompanied my DCs to the pool when they were all under 8/9 and then they were allowed to go with friends. The pool has a perfectly reasonable rule that children over 8 can go unaccompanied. I would hazard a guess that none of my children ever refrained from shouting, and generally being loud at the pool on their own. Even when I was with them their voices were raised. This is because they were excited to be at the pool having fun. A normal response to the pool in other words.

The pool where my children swim is Olympic length, with a separate diving well and a separate shallow toddler pool plus an area of the main pool where you can wade in from toes in the water to about mid thigh depth - this area has several fountains. There is a section joined to the main pool by a channel where there are slides, tall, medium and short. There is an adjacent sandy area. Could I physically follow all five of them around as they pursued their various interests? Should I have, shushing them in true blue King Canute style, surrounded by the noise of happy shrieking and shouting?
(Seems to be quite a British thing, this insistence on the futile).

It's not good parenting to impose your own culturally-generated anxieties or the shibboleths you were brought up with or the cultural norms of your former society on children trying to live their lives somewhere else. It's being silly at best and hobbling your children at worst.

Being loud at a pool does nobody any harm. Expecting children to observe British norms in a place that is clearly not Britain is a recipe for indigestion.

We had a child fire his water pistol at us when we where eating dinner outside at about 8pm. This is from the apartment above us used by Airbnb.

Silly boy didn’t realise I had my super water drencher gun within arms length.

So that made 2 of us drenched (it was really, really hot).

Maths, I was brought up to believe that if people wanted to swim, in a pool, for pleasure, they should be able to do so, and because throwing balls around and dive bombing make it almost impossible for others to swim we didn't do that. We still had a fab time at the pool. You keep replacing where I've said people with adults, but I know people from age 9 or 10 up, who enjoy swimming, as in actual swimming. Should my 12 year old cousin have to get up at 6am for a swim on holiday because the rest of the day the pool is designated only for the enjoyment of those who don't want to swim? No, communal facilities are there to be shared by everyone, of all ages, and it doesn't ruin a kids holiday to compromise. I'm not saying they should stand silently like statues, but can you really not understand that taking over a whole pool so that no one else can use it, is not ok??

Incidentally, I was on holiday recently, smallish pool, hot weather. There were about 7 kids in the pool, messing around in one corner.

They weren't throwing balls, leaping in or otherwise taking over the whole pool but from the sound of their laughter were definitely having a good time.

There was a couple of adults who seemed to be spend most of their time in another corner, reading and sitting on the steps.

On the other side of the pool people, including adults and children were having a leisurely swim up and down. There wasn't a lot of space but everyone made room for each other, No one got in each other's way, everyone used the pool, the atmosphere was good, everyone's a winner.

So please don't try to argue that children are inherently going to be inconsiderate and selfish when using a pool, because that's evidently not true of all children.

You have been fooled by the term 'swimming pool' into believing that pools are just for swimming.

They are actually aquatic recreation resources and all sorts of aquatic recreation is possible and tolerated in them, including lazing around on a floatie, holding your nose and jumping in, playing ball games and more.

You don't have the right to swim through if the aquatic recreation resource is crowded or if people have floaties out to lounge on just as you don't have the right to drive at the speed limit in congested traffic. You shouldn't assume you can swim lengths or even half lengths if there are other people enjoying the water in perfectly valid ways that do not include swimming, unless there are roped off areas for swimmers. Swimming is only one of many ways to enjoy the water.

My local aquatic recreation resource solves this issue by having a break of ten minutes every hour during the afternoon. During this break people 18 and over can be in the water. Children take a rest, have a snack or a drink, reapply sunscreen, and many parents usher their DCs to the loos at this point. Even with this relatively quiet time in the water, not all the adults are swimming, though some are. Nobody who is in the water to swim a length or two during those ten minutes would stand on their right to swim if someone else drifted into their lane.

When a little common sense is applied in both personal deportment and in management - obv my local pool management understands that there are many equally valid ways to enjoy the resource - life gets a lot less fraught.

I am not arguing that children are inherently selfish and inconsiderate where pools are concerned.

I am suggesting that in the case of pools, adults should be a lot more tolerant and less up themselves.

Pool capacity where I swim in the early morning and sometimes lounge around later in the day is 850 btw, and on hot, humid summer days they frequently have lines outside waiting for parties to exit before they can be admitted.

It is clearly a resource for everyone in the community, with no particular demographic favoured and nobody only there on sufferance.

On a busy day, nobody has the right to actually swim.

You cannot replicate the rules and management of a large leisure complex at a small outdoor pool on a complex like the one op describes though. Anyway I think we actually agree with each other, in that we are both saying that no one has the right to dominate a pool in that situation all day, at the expense of others who wish to use it. So people who want to mess around in it should be able to do so, and people who want to swim should be able to do so. Neither group have 'rights' that trump the others. Sharing is a key skill for children to learn and learning to share a space with others will do them more good than harm. As I say in reality most of the kids I know are very good about being considerate to others because that's how they've been brought up, but they still have a lot of fun at the pool!

These people are be g unreasonable making noise up to the early hours of the morning on holiday or not. Dies the pool not have a notice beside it stating hours of use. It surely should. Get the community association to act on the existing conditions serving a notice on each household telling them of the rules and that they apply to all properties no matter who is using them.

errr nice post maths but what does it have to do with children using the pool at midnight?

I am not surprised people use the pool late in the evening and at night and I am surprised that it isn't open later, nobody here swims between 12 and about 4.30 or 5 (well maybe tourists do) because it is too hot and people especially children will burn. At that sort of time if it is the holidays small children should be having a nice cool siesta and recharging their batteries for supper and racketing about later.

In the pool when I was on holiday one rule was no floats. If it is busy then they definitely should not be in pool especially lilos imo as they take up too much room and can be dangerous

Dominating a pool is perfectly fine. The pools you describe are clearly dominated by the adult users.

All the families in the OPs' complex paid for this resource and those families who object to how the children use it need to loosen up. The children are on a completely equal footing with the adults when it comes to pool use.

Children have the right to have safe fun in the water and safe fun includes making a lot of noise. This element of aquatic recreation is not inherently harmful to anyone. If nobody has yet been hurt by pool activities then it can perhaps be assumed that the children are not doing crazy or wildly dangerous things even though they dominate this pool.

Otoh, someone swimming lengths in a pool where there are children or others floating or playing ball or other non-swimming games is (1) being uncivil, and (2) causing a hazard as they could run into another pool user and upend them, kick someone, or clobber someone with a flailing arm.

Otoh, someone swimming lengths in a pool where there are children or others floating or playing ball or other non-swimming games is (1) being uncivil, and (2) causing a hazard as they could run into another pool user and upend them, kick someone, or clobber someone with a flailing arm.

I’ve heard it all now.

So the adult home owners cannot reasonably expect to use the swimming pool they have paid for for the purpose of swimming in if there are any children in it, because children get priority all the time, always.

Christ, no wonder kids are brats these days. Their parents seem to be teaching them the world revolves around them and no one else matters.

Well, where I live ALL pools close at latest 8.30pm. The lifeguards go home, the pool is cleaned for the next day. They have worked all day!

Most DC's under 'tween' age and over 7 do not nap anyway.

No pools I know are open after 8.30 as it is a safeguarding issue. You HAVE to have a lifeguard present.

I have a bugbear that mine opens at 11am (very strict) it is already too bloody hot by then! An 8am swim would be lovely.

If there is nobody enforcing that rule then there is nothing amiss with that. Clearly their families have allowed it and are not concerned at children or pre teens being up that late. It's not Britain, WendyCope. It's somewhere else where people stay up later, and as pointed out, possibly some place where the hot midday hours are avoided. It get much cooler in the evening. If you don't get mosquitoes then it can be very pleasant.

maths they are unsupervised during the day and swim at night shrieking. People take drinks and ashtrays around the pool and you are banging on about adults swimming lengths!

Why are people missing the point?

So the adult home owners cannot reasonably expect to use the swimming pool they have paid for for the purpose of swimming in if there are any children in it, because children get priority all the time, always

No, just as you can't doggedly expect to do 70 in congested traffic even if that is the speed limit and you need to get somewhere in a certain amount of time, if you find the pool fills with children as soon as it opens, then you have to suck it up.

Adults do not get precedence over children at a resource that is designed for people of all ages to use, and you cannot insist on doing something that might result in injury or fright to others, i.e. swimming lengths in a crowded pool.

And some of the adult homeowners are clearly perfectly happy about how the pool is used since it is their children using it.

Also, it is hottest right now FYI, not cooler at all. Humid and hot. Will be coolest at 5am.

I’m not saying adults should take precedence over children. You’re saying children should take precedence over adults. That’s literally what you’re saying.

I am addressing points people have made about their right to swim, WendyCope.

Shrieking is doing nobody any harm no matter what time it happens.

Ashtrays are better than flicking fag ends into the water, no? Or leaving embers where someone could step on them?

Not sure what the problem is with drinks around the pool?

Presumably these are adults with the ashtrays and the drinks, so clearly there is some adult supervision going on. The problem in the OP's opinion is that people are not doing the sort of poolside parenting that she would do.

LOL 'you cannot do anything that might result in injury or fright to others'

THIS IS WHAT THEY ARE DOING. It is dangerous and noisy at midnight!

I just thought it was funny that she thought an adult swimming lengths in a pool was likely to cause “fright or injury”.

Jeez Louise.

If my kids were playing in the pool and there was an adult trying to swim lengths I would make my kids keep to one side.

Ok maths backing away slowly. Crack on...

Drinks around a pool? Flicking ash?
Unsupervised children at midnight? With no lifeguard. When it is AGAINST the regulations? Ok then.

Tokyo adults swimming lengths in the day is obviously dangerous and causes fright and injury!