Over 600,000+ people in the USA use vacation rentals. 83% of travelers prefer to spend their vacations near water. 33% of vacation home buyers purchase homes in a beach area and 21% purchase lakefront properties.

With over 23,000 rental companies operating in the USA, there is little to no regulation or enforcement of water safety for these properties. This means that  vacation rentals on or near bodies of water can operate without being inspected beforehand for dangers involving water accessibility, national watercraft safety compliance and/or basic safety standards for preventing water injury or death.

In most residential areas there are certain safety regulations, enforced by county inspectors, that help prevent either injury or death by water when installing pools. These protocols are not often enforced on properties with access to bodies of water and there are no regulations governing inspections of vacation rentals to ensure basic safety precautions are taken to prevent injury or death.

I recently lost my 30 year old brother when he decided to take a night canoe trip with a family friend on Fox Lake in IL.  He was staying in an Air BnB on a canal that opened to Fox Lake and there was a canoe by the canal ready for use. They paddled out, enjoyed the stars ( they actually saw 3 shooting stars), he enjoyed the company of his friend who had just come into town to visit him and then they started to paddle back. The canoe overturned and they called out for help in distress, our friend was picked up but my brother had drowned in the time in took for someone to rescue them.  My brother was an engineer with a promising future, he was kind, caring and helped a lot of people, he was an amazing brother, son and friend. We were devastated and heartbroken. He felt safe enough to take that canoe out that night after being on the water so many times in his short life. He didn’t expect the worst, most of us never do.

There is no doubt in my mind that my brother would still be here today had there been a life jacket on that canoe. Living in Florida and having stayed in plenty of Air BnBs on bodies of water, I was shocked to hear the circumstances of this event. The canoe wasn’t locked up, there was no safety information provided by the rental about the lake or the canoe, there were no life jackets present or any other safety equipment, there wasn’t a ladder by the canal which was really low at the time and the canoe didn’t even have the right oars, one was an canoe oar and one was a kayak paddle.  The complete negligence of the rental was unbelievable.

There is nothing I can do to bring my brother back but there is something we all can do to prevent this from happening to other people.  People who are loved, our family and friends. Vacation rentals need to be held responsible for the safety of their guests, especially if they are renting near water. There should be at least a set of safety requirements for rentals on a body of water, especially if they offer watercrafts for use.  This seems like an obvious solution to an obvious problem, yet there are no laws/regulations in place to govern these rental properties in these matters.

Vacation rentals are a multi-billion dollar industry with enough revenue to create systems to enforce safety for their guests. Simple requirements can be enforced to prevent these types of accidents from happening. An annual inspection and permit renewal, requiring safety information, checking that the correct equipment is provided and maintained for watercrafts, checking that the right safety equipment is provided (at least in accordance with the coast guard’s national compliance regulations) and checking accessibility issues, just like for swimming pools, can prevent a lot of accidents from happening on or near water. Most people don’t plan on bad things happening, especially when vacationing, but being aware of dangers and being equipped to handle them can make all the difference in a life or death situation.