Teens use technology to party in strangers' pools

Tech savvy teens are using Google Earth’s splendidly clear aerial shots of the UK to launch a summertime craze – pool crashing. Swimming pool on Google Earth <Google Earth’s used to identify pool-equipped victims and then Facebook helps organise the crash Teens begin by surfing Google Earth’s satellite images to find …

[Ash]

Yob culture at its finest.

Sometimes I despair.

Truly, I do.

[Anonymous Coward]

Pint to the first person....

...who can post where the location of that pool in the picture is.

Meet you all there at 6pm :)

[Anonymous Coward]

why?

is it that kids think up these things and not adults? sounds like fun!

[Adam Williamson]

The Reg and the Mail?

So, what, the Reg is now in the business of uncritically reprinting barely-substantiated scare stories for the over-moneyed middle classes from the Daily Mail?

Congratulations - I see you've gone up in the world! ;)

[Anonymous Coward]

crash MY pool, will ya?

This sounds like a job for... (Dot da da DAAA!) my Doberman Pinser!

Dobie: mmmm, chav!

[Anonymous Coward]

What fun you could have if......

you have a Pool and put in some of that special water that shows up under ultra violet light (the stuff they use to catch burglars) !!!!

Or perhaps even put in something worse ??Not that I am suggesting that but how about a few Piranhas ??

[Anonymous Coward]

heh

I gotta say, that's pretty clever. That particular use had never occured to me...

[Anonymous Coward]

Now all we need is...

An online shop where pool owners can buy some high quality ill tempered mutated sea bass...

Mines the light grey nehru jacket by the "laser"...

[Steve Evans]

I'm thinking...

About putting a blue tarp out on my back lawn... Anyone know when the next Google plane is due over?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: What fun you could have if......

"you have a Pool and put in some of that special water that shows up under ultra violet light (the stuff they use to catch burglars) !!!!"

Are you kidding? The kids these days would like that even better as they go to their next rave all glowy.

PH, cause she goes to those kind of raves

[Dunstan Vavasour]

Trampolines

You can also see which is your closest neighbour to have one of those big trampolines. Be sure to ask politely.

[Anonymous Coward]

wotcha gonna do about it?

> “using someone else’s pool is trespassing and therefore illegal”.

Yeah, but so is dropping litter.

And in any case, does anyone seriously expect the cops to arrest some kids for jumping in a swimming pool? Can you even <em>be</em> arrested for trespass?

[D]

Hi folks, thanks for calling by and

welcome to the swimming pool of death.

Getting chavs to jump into pools of bleach could become a new national pastime.

[Stuart]

Respect

You got to give them a degree of respect. I mean, using arial photography to mount cunning raids on commodities you wish to annex for your personal benefit? Sounds more like the actions of team america world police , rather than "Yob culture".

[Anonymous Coward]

Piranha

Piranha wouldn't survive the chlorine in the pool. Now, sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads...

[Jack]

Perhaps...

...they could stop painting their pools that blindingly obvious, bottom of a pool aqua color that can apparently be seen from orbit?

(Do they even *make* pool paints in other colors?)

[Anonymous Coward]

Pools?

Swimming Pools .... England???? Is the weather ever good enough in this country for an outdoor pool? Fools who waste their money deserve whatever they get. Really they should have just paid a bit more and had an indoor pool.

[Gerry Best]

...give it a name...

Frankly I'm surprised nobody managed to coin the term 'splash-mob' yet...

[Planeten Paultje]

Hmmmmmm.......

An alligator rental service may just fill the new hole in the market methinks ;-)

[Nexox Enigma]

Pool Paint

My pool is plain old white plasterish substance on the bottom, but in Google Earth, it shows up as that blue color. The color comes from the water, and things that get dissolved in it, plus sunlight.

You might get better results with a black bottom pool... and not just because they tend to be far warmer. It'd be like a stealth pool or something.

The greatest part is that, if the laws are at all like the US laws, if someone were to get hurt in the pool, then the pool owners would likely get sued.

[Ian Sane]

@Jack

I'll take my Pool Color in Red :D

[Les Matthew]

@D

"Getting chavs to jump into pools of bleach could become a new national pastime."

Nah, use sulphuric acid then there will be no solid evidence.

[Anonymous Coward]

Dangers

Things may be more civilized in the UK, but just over twenty years ago, a US newspaper columnist (liberal, professedly in favor of gun control) opened fire with an unregistered handgun on a couple of kids sneaking a swim in his pool. He winged the male, not as I recall seriously injuring him. The simple possession of this handgun was illegal where he lived, but he was found not guilty.

So I wouldn't advise anyone to try to start this trend in the US.

[Kanhef]

Shocking behavior

Wire up a hot terminal at one end of the pool, a ground at the other, activated by motion sensor. If you're feeling charitable, leave a CPR manual nearby for their friends.

<- but no warning signs, or you ruin the fun.

[Steve Carr]

Colourful Pools From Space!

We had our pool painted "Barney Purple" - the paint suppliers hadn't been asked for the colour before, and were leary of the concept, but pigments are pigments, after all! So you can indeed have other colours to that horrid blue!

[Adam Wynne]

Trespass

As far as I'm aware from my hippy peace-convoy days, trespass is a civil offence for which you cannot be arrested.

Public order offences, criminal damage, threatening behaviour, etc are of course punishable by death.

:)

[stuart Thompson]

The only one

I can't be the only one who thinks this would be really funny, assuming the parties involved didn't trash the place.

With a bit of respect on the part of the kids this could work.

Mines the one that looks suprisingly like a pair of Speedo's ( maybe swimming shorts then, nobody wants to see Peedo's ( no, there shouldn't be an S there))

[Argus Tuft]

pool? England?

does that double as an ice-rink for 3/4 of the year??

[mine's the warm padded one]

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Trespass

Love it when the schoolyard lawyers start yapping.

You can indeed be arrested for trespass. Been there done that. It can be a serious criminal offence depending on your behaviour.

I'll get me coat 'cause I learned my lesson.

[Chris C]

Liability?

Can anyone from the UK tell me if trespassing releases the property owner from liability? I would sincerely hope so. I hope you haven't adopted ALL of our stupid laws. Here in the US, someone can break into your house and rob you, and they will have committed a crime for which they can be arrested. But if they are injured while committing this crime (for example, if they break a leg from falling down a flight of stairs while carrying a television), they can sue you because they were injured on your property. Sadly, yes, they do win these ridiculous lawsuits.

[Anonymous Coward]

Idiots

I wouldn't be surprised if the people who think this is a clever idea, funny etc. are the same people who howl the loudest at government 'invasions of privacy, lack of respect for the rights of citizens' etc. Why would anyone be surprised by the government you have? They are the product of the same disrespectful, disfunctional culture that produced you idiots.

[E]

One solution

When not using the pool, string monofilament fishing line from end to end in the pool. About 40 lb test should work quite well - it will not break easily and it is thin enough. Make sure the bleach is fresh though, disinfectant will be important.

Put up a little "Danger" sign to make it official, they were warned.

[Andrew Meredith]

Trespass now a crime

I forget which item from the deluge of new law it was that made it so, but trespass is now a crime. IIRC it comes in various degrees for which the prison sentence goes up sharply with the use of violence and the possession of degrees of weaponry .. culminating in the authorities being able to bomb you from orbit if you pull a gun or some such.

ET because these days if he landed on farmer Joe's back 50 he'd be arrested for trespass.

[Anonymous Coward]

Note to self.

Aside from what it'd do to my electricity bill, is there any reason why I could hook my pool up to mains electricity?

[Mr_Flibble]

Best not try that

In my 'ahem' pool it's current resident would be most happy at the live meal.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is just a high tech version of stuff kids do...

When I were a lad we used to sneak into all sorts of places we were not supposed to be. We didn't damage stuff and we treated the places with respect. My neighbour's kids are building a den in my front garden and I ignore it so long as they don't damage anything and don't make a mess.

[Anonymous Coward]

A little SHOCK

If I had a pool, I would install some wires to battery/transformer, with a switch inside the house.

Then I would wait for the fekers to go into the pool, standing with my camera, aaannd BBZZZZZZTTTT ;)

See you on youtube :P

[Austin Tayshus]

Where can I find blue pigment

for my cesspool?

[Anonymous Coward]

Lazy bloody kids

[Effects stereotypical Yorkshire accent] I remember when I were a lad, back when pools were black an' white, we 'ad t'build are own aerial photography rigs an' mek are own pools. Kids these days, don't know they're born...[/accent]

On a more accurate note, when I was younger we'd actually spend time wandering around the local area so we knew where the pools were anyway (both of them in a 50 mile radius :P). Didn't crash any pools myself but I know it went on even back in those heady days of the mid to late 1990s.

So this is only even slightly newsworthy- or even new- as it involves Google Earth/Maps and they rawk. Still, I can't wait for a day someone decides to make a "leap of faith" from a roof/balcony to find that the photo was out of date and there's not a pool there anymore (or a net over it or suchlike)...

Yeah, it's the neoprene one.

[Adam Wynne]

@ Cowardly Anonymous

"Love it when the schoolyard lawyers start yapping.

You can indeed be arrested for trespass. Been there done that. It can be a serious criminal offence depending on your behaviour."

Schoolyard lawyers yapping? Hardly. Anyway:

OK, you can be arrested for aggravated trespass (caused criminal damage on the way in, hit the landowner, etc) or criminal trespass (British rail land where its designated active, MoD land, etc), but (as this thread is clearly alluding to) walking into someone's garden and using their pool, outwith PACE or Public Order 1986, is a civil offence in its own right and to the letter of the law, that is not criminal therefore not arrestable. You might of course be arrested on 'suspicion of breaching the peace' but thats another matter entirely.

Mine's the one with 'graduated from Cambridge with a law degree, spent 7 years trespassing and never got arrested' written on the back.

[Kevin Gurney]

“using someone else’s pool is trespassing and therefore illegal”.

Trespass = civil action not criminal in the UK

[Anonymous Coward]

Sulphuric acid?

Nah, use Oleum (fuming sulphuric acid) or even better a 30-50% solution of hydrofluoric acid - little f*ckers won't realise it's acid until it's too late & their bones are dissolving....

Mwah-hah-hah-hah!

[Wayland Sothcott]

Blue pools?

The skateboarding craze used peoples empty pools in California.

I have often thought that google earth would tell you which neighbours you should try to get invited to their ba-be-q.

In the 1970's we build a pool using some doors and fence posts and sand and an orange tarpaulin. They had run out of blue. This bright orange plastic made the water seem a lot warmer ;-)

Now if people painted their pools green they they would be harder to spot on Google Earth.

[Anonymous Coward]

Fun Invention....

Watch out for me on Dragons Den with my roll out swimming pool picture, when people look at your property on Google Earth you'll have a nice looking expensive pool in your garden next to your Jacuzzi and bar, come night time just fold it up into the shed :-)

Imagine the look on all those kids faces when they climb the fence and there's not a pool there!!

[Elmer Phud]

why chavs?

Don't quite understand how it is that only chavs will do this. Considering the need for transport, mobes, broadband etc. it's more likely that the readers' own middle-class yobs are the ones who will be after a splash and dash.

Solution -- drop some plastic turds in your own pool.

Oh, and wasn't this also how skateboarding got popular - by crashing dry pools?

[Anonymous Coward]

Trespass is a civil offence and not arrestable...

You can't be arrested for trespass - it is a civil offence.

You can be arrested for not leaving when asked to leave the property, as that then crosses a line into "breach of the peace", which is criminal, or for burglary if your trespass involves stealing or criminal damage, for which trespass is a required component.

There is an offence of 'Aggravated Trespass' (CJA 1994), which is when you trespass "with the intention of disrupting, or intimidating those taking part in, lawful activity on that land".

But if you are harmlessly on someone else land (trespassing), but are prepared to leave when asked to do so, then you can't be arrested - arresting you would prevent you from leaving and correcting the 'wrong'.

[ImaGnuber]

@Lawyer Adam Wynne

"Mine's the one with 'graduated from Cambridge with a law degree, spent 7 years trespassing and never got arrested' written on the back."

Stay in England. You could get hurt (and charged and tried) if you do it here. Practical experience speaking.

Yeah I'm a crazy Norte Americano

[Anonymous Coward]

Pool? England?

Global warming, don'cha know?

[mike brockington]

Scotland

Seeing as we have a different legal system up here, can anyone confirm for me the common belief that there is no law of trespass in Scotland?

And secondly, has anyone spotted an out-door pool for it to matter?

[H5N1]

Uhmm...nobody has

mentioned Tasers. Just wait until there's about 30 of them in the pool, dip the Taser in and give it a 1 second blast.

I'm sure they won't be coming back.

Or if you're nicer and not so pissed off at the event you could just Taser one of the offending chaps and threaten the rest until they cleared off.

[Anonymous Coward]

@scotland

Trespass or not Trespass in Scotland - the answer isn't straightforward. Go and have a look here for more information:

http://www.mountaineering-scotland.org.uk/news/trespass.html

Effectively there *are* trespass laws in Scotland (e.g. the Trespass (Scotland) Act 1865), and CJA 1994 as in England. Although the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003 amended the T(S)A 1865 to allow a statutory right of access.

[Anonymous Coward]

@Scotland - outdoor pool...

Ah yes - Stonehaven (just outside Aberdeen) in the North East of Scotland has a lovely olympic size, art deco, open air swimming pool, filled with filtered north sea water:

http://www.stonehavenopenairpool.co.uk/

But it is heated... so not quite as bracing as a dip in the North Sea itself.

[Anonymous Coward]

The forest for the tree

Just do like in this Montreal suburb:

http://tinyurl.com/3l9ybf (Google Maps sat view)

Hide it in the crowd...

And yes our summer is only 3 months long, but the shorter it is, the more you appreciate it and want to enjoy it.

Simon of the North

[Jack]

Skinny Skipping

We used to call that "skinny skipping".

I spent the summer after university (mid-80's) painting houses and partying with friends in New Haven CT. We'd have a few beers after work then go drive up into the hills where everyone had a pool. We'd all strip down - guys & girls alike - sneak over the fence or under the hedge, and silently slip into the pool. After a couple splashes or three we'd high tail it back to the car and skip on to the next house.

We were only pulled over once by a suspicious cop. Good thing his flashlight beam never made it below our chests as we never bothered to pull on our pants between stops... good times...