Zac Lytle and Mariana Griggs hang out in the Dumpster pool, which is under construction.
The pool at Kidd Springs Park is closed because of budget cuts. That leaves the Belmont Hotel and the backyard pools of a few very popular homeowners as the only places to swim outdoors in Oak Cliff this summer.
So a few Cliffsters took a cue from their Brooklyn brethren and decided to make their own pool — out of a construction Dumpster. Dumpster pools were the hottest way to cool out in Brooklyn last summer, and this year, the trend has hit Park Avenue. Bill Murray even dove into one on Letterman.
Neighbors Mariana Griggs and Zac Lytle have been working on their Dumpster pool all week.
“It’s been so hot, and there’s nowhere to swim, and I don’t want to sneak into hotels or anything like that,” Lytle says. “The pool being closed was a major bummer, so this was a good solution.”
First, they leased the Dumpster for two months and had it delivered to the West Dallas lot that is Griggs’s fledgling farm. Then they cleared the trash out of it, sanded the sides so that it doesn’t have any rough edges and washed it down with bleach and water.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsDeZ-d79RM[/youtube]They stacked up salvaged wooden pallets beside it for a makeshift deck, sealed the openings with caulk and foam, and lined it with tarps. The original idea was to use recycled vinyl from billboards for the lining, but they couldn’t find any in time.
Next, they will put sand in the bottom to hold the tarp down and fill the sucker with water. There’s no electricity on the lot, so they can’t hook up a filter. But Griggs intends to use the Dumpster pool as a reservoir for her little farm, and they will keep refilling it.
Once their Dumpster pool days are over, Griggs, Lytle and friends intend to return the Dumpster full of trash they’re going to clean out of a disabled neighbor’s yard.
