Police in riot vans attended an AirBnb property that had been rented for a gender reveal party after it escalated into a huge party with hundreds of guests.
The owner of the holiday let where the party took place, 33-year-old Matt Genesis, said he had been tricked after agreeing to rent the 10-bed house to a group of eight people who booked it through Instagram for a "gender reveal" party.
Mr Genesis said he was first alerted to the escalating situation at his holiday let in Norden, Greater Manchester, by neighbours making noise complaints.
After arriving to the property at 9.30pm, he was surprised to find hundreds of people filling the street and attempting to enter the house.
He said: “Whilst we were there, minibus after minibus was turning up – I’d say one every 15 minutes, a minibus full of six to eight people walking in."
"It was out of control – police turned up. We called them, obviously neighbours had called them. It was out of our control."
“Even the guy who booked it, it was out of his control on his behalf – he said he didn’t expect anywhere near the amount of people, but it’s been passed around group and groups.”
Neighbours and Mr Genesis called police, who came in riot vans to disperse the 200-strong crowd of partygoers.
Mr Genesis said organisers had disabled the property's security systems, so he was not immediately alerted to the situation.
“Usually if guests are checking in we have cameras on the property, but as soon as they entered they turned the Wi-Fi off."
“That disabled the cameras, so we weren’t able to deal with it any sooner than they could. It was very much ‘Project X’".
“It was so structured, before we emptied the house out the people who were there said ‘where do we go?’"
"Guests had travelled from as far as London for it, so it was very, very calculated. It hit us – we seem like the bad guys, but at the same time it did ultimately hit us as well in the pocket.”
It took three cleaning staff 12 hours to clean the property after the party.
The owners received a £450-per-night fee from the people who made the booking, as well as a £250 damage deposit – but the money was not enough to cover the estimated £2,000 worth of damage done to the property.
The property, which is worth £635,000, had recently undergone renovations and includes a hot tub and pool tables.
