Matt Genesis, 33, says that hundreds of people turned up in a ‘Project X’ style disaster at the holiday let he owns in Norden, Greater Manchester, and riot police were needed to remove them
The owner of a holiday let has told of his horror after a booking for a ‘gender reveal’ turned into a huge house party with 200 drunken revellers which had to be broken up by riot police.
Matt Genesis, 33, said he was duped after agreeing to rent his 10-bed £635,000 home out to a group of eight people who booked it via Instagram for a gender reveal. However the rental turned into a ‘Project X’ style disaster with hundreds of party-goers flooding to the venue causing chaos and £2,000 worth of damage. Matt told how he was first was alerted by noise complaints from neighbours on June 25.
He tried to log-in into the property’s external security cameras only to discover they had been disconnected at the £450 a night rental.
To his horror he discovered that minibus loads of revellers had turned up at the quiet cul-de-sac in the village of Norden, Greater Manchester and others were parking over his neighbours driveways.
Police in riot vans had to be called to the scene to disperse some of the party-goers who had travelled as far as London to attend the party.
Matt is a director of Fairway Building & Remedial Contractors, the company which owns the property. After arriving to the home at 9.30pm, he was shocked to find 150 people filling the streets and trying to get in to the 10-person home.
Matt 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.”
Matt said the operation had been ‘calculated’ – with guests disabling the home’s security systems. Matt said: “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’.” The embarrassed Airbnb owners were forced to say sorry to neighbours and cancel their next booking as they worked to replace broken furniture and deep clean the damaged house, suffering a total £2,000 in losses.
The property, which previously underwent a £200,000 renovation and includes a hot tub and pool tables, took three staff 12 hours to clean following the party.
The only money the owners received in return is the £450 per night charge, plus a £250 damage deposit – leaving them well out of pocket. The property is regularly rented out via Airbnb but on this occasion was booked via Instagram.
Matt said: “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.”
Those living nearby were left miffed by the chaos. James Gartside, 80, and Jane Gartside, 84, have lived next door to the home for over 50 years, and remembered when it was previously owned by an older couple who had passed away.
They first realised something was brewing after they were asked to allow a party-goer to park in their driveway. Jane said: “I think I knew it was going to be quite busy, you just got that feeling quite quickly.
“Nine o’clock one of the owners arrived and said ‘I’m sorry, this is what’s happening’ and said the police had been sent for. They got everybody out.” She added: “It was just that night was out of control, when the police came.
“They calmed it all down – there was no fighting or anything like that. We had a meeting, we went around, they invited us all around and everybody felt very upset. They were very apologetic.”
Mike Law, who lives on the other side of the property, said: “They did very well to disperse them, in my opinion. In a way it was a problem at the time, but it’s not lasted. There were certainly more than 200 people, I would say, it was a nuisance – but we can be a nuisance to our next door neighbours.
“Nuisance, OK, yeah, danger and that sort of thing didn’t come in to it, in my opinion. I didn’t know how they were going to fit in there. Before the big masses came I did offer our drive to park on, but I think the owners learnt a lesson on it and will obviously improve it.”
Airbnb said it had looked in to the situation and found the booking had been made through a third party, with no reservations made for the property on its platform. Project X is a 2012 teen movie based on real life events when a house party attracts hundreds of unexpected revellers after details are posted on social media.