All-night Airbnb rave turns Canonbury flat into ‘nightclub’ – with DJ and bouncer

The party was compared by a neighbour to nightclub Fabric. Picture: Danny Seaton (Image: Archant)

Anyone trying to get some sleep in leafy Grosvenor Avenue was forced to contend with blaring music until 6am on Saturday morning, despite police and the council being called before midnight.

Fed-up locals, speaking to the Gazette outside their homes, said cops, who arrived at 3am, were standing around for more than an hour before confronting the partygoers.

The town hall, which had already sent staff to the scene, said the officers were waiting for backup because the crowd was too aggressive.

“It was like a football crowd,” said the next-door neighbour, whose wife is pregnant. “It was the worst night ever. I could hear the music louder than if I was playing it in my own living room.

“There was a bouncer stopping people without a ticket from going in. You needed the riot police, not one guy from the council – there were fights outside in the street.

“They must have been standing on top of each other in there – it’s a one-bedroom flat. It was like Alice in Wonderland watching them come out.

“There was a microphone and professional speakers. I’ve got a pretty good sound system in my house and it was better than that. It was horrible music – the worst night’s sleep ever.”

Police at first told a neighbour to call the council. Unsurprisingly the staff who turned up were unable to get ravers to shut the sound off – so called police, who then needed to send for backup because of the huge number of people.

The man next door continued: “There was a big police van and another car, but they were just standing outside for hours.”

A neighbour who lives beneath the party flat also said she could see police from her window and said they finally began clearing people out at 4.30am.

“It sounded like Fabric was upstairs,” she said. “It was just the constant bass thud. We saw one guy carrying in DJ equipment.”

The neighbour told the owner, who was in Vietnam, what was going on and he told her to call the police. “He felt terrible and couldn’t do anything,” she said. “We know he uses Airbnb but it’s never been an issue.”

Islington’s community safety boss Cllr Andy Hull, said: “This was selfish, aggressive, and unacceptable behaviour.

“Our out-of-hours anti-social behaviour team investigates noise complaints. They went to this property but found themselves in an aggressive situation, involving many people outside.

“Our officers could not enter safely and had to call police for assistance. Because of the numbers involved, extra police then had to be requested and, as a result of this action, the party closed and all left.

“The council has contacted the property owner, as the occupiers had breached their Airbnb agreement.”

An Airbnb spokesman said the guest had now been banned by the company.

He said: “We have zero tolerance for this kind of behaviour. We are supporting the host and have removed the guest from Airbnb.

“There have been over 160 million guest arrivals in Airbnb listings and negative incidents like this are incredibly rare.”

Police gave mixed messages about how the rave was dealt with. @MPSIslington tweeted at the time to say they had cleared the flat due to “drugs and disorder”. But Scotland Yard’s press office later said “no criminal offences were apparent” and cops merely “maintained a presence until the party concluded”.