‘Like Project X’: Inside wild house party that’s rocked Brisbane

More than 500 “entitled teenagers” smashing bottles, screaming and destroying a home. Police cars jumped on and neighbours hiding in their homes. This is what really went down Saturday night.

Residents of a normally quiet East Brisbane street have relived the wild house party run by elite private school students on Saturday, saying it evoked memories of Corey Worthington and Hollywood movie Project X.

Airbnb host Benjamin Holt expected a family of five to stay at his Geelong St home, but was shocked to find out through neighbours partying teenagers had taken over the property.

Footage captured that night shows hundreds of partygoers at the property, damaging everything from the plumbing to throwing expensive appliances and a mower directly into the pool.

When police arrived to disperse the gathering, neighbours claimed teenagers swarmed police vehicles, jumped over fences, ran through backyards and into other dwellings to flee the scene.

Teenages arrive at the East Brisbane house party.

The party rages at the back of the East Brisbane home.

A neighbour of the property said the unhinged gathering evoked memories of Corey Worthington, who infamously organised a party at his parent’s house in 2008 through Myspace which quickly spiralled out of control as hundreds of teenagers rocked up.

“At the beginning, before things got scary, we were making fun of the whole thing, we were saying it was like Corey Worthington,” the neighbour said.

“It was like Project X.

“After a while it was really scary, the kids just wouldn’t go.

“We weren’t safe, we didn’t feel safe.

“This type of party, no one was going to leave, the police needed to come.”

It’s understood police struggled to get into the street because of the amount of cars and people around.

It’s believed when they arrived the teenagers swarmed the vehicles, climbing on them and not letting the officers out.

A different neighbour said the police struggled to get out of their vehicles.
“When the police turned up they (party goers) were sort of shaking the car,” he said.

“Once they turned up and walked down the street, all these kids just ran, just all ran down the streets.”

That neighbour added that his dog chased party goers that jumped the fence into his backyard.
“We had a couple of kids jump the back fence here, which my dog found very entertaining, so a bit of sport for him,’ he said.

“I spent three years telling him not to bite anyone so he finally got his chance.”

A separate neighbour said partygoers threw items into his backyard.

“I’ve got some stuff over my fence where they’ve got pool furniture and thrown it over the fence,” he said.

“And the balustrade from part of the deck there, that’s right over the backyard too.”

The neighbour added while several parties had been held at the Airbnb, this was easily the worst he had witnessed.

“There’s always been a few boisterous people, but not as bad as this, this was incredible,” he said.

“I couldn’t believe it … all the young ones were running up and down, screaming and yelling and all of a sudden you hear all these smashed bottles and screaming.

“That’s got me baffled, why would you want to do so much damage? Go and have a party, enjoy yourself.”

A bottle smashed on the footpath outside.

The teens at the back of the home near the pool.

Another neighbour said the teenagers had “no respect for anybody’s property”.

“It was just basically a whole heap of entitled young teenagers on the night out for a good time,” the neighbour said.

“It was out of control, there must have been about 400-500 kids here in the end.

“This street has always been really quiet, we’ve never had anything of that scale before.”

A separate neighbour called on authorities to crack down on Airbnb properties in residential areas.

“What just what happened on Saturday night is the authorities’ inability or not wanting to

take action,” the neighbour said.

“Therefore they are not taking any action, and more things like that are going to happen as a result of it.

“Airbnb doesn’t have the ability to secure a place.”

A different neighbour, who has lived in the street for 42 years, said he had never seen anything like it.

“I just heard and saw a lot of young people running up and down the street,” he said.

“I just had a look out of the window and then I eventually saw the police come.

“This is normally a quiet street.”

A Fijian tourist on holiday staying in a unit complex in the street said that people fled the party into the unit complex he was staying.

“When the cops came in the middle of the night, the people started running, some ran into our compound, some ran right across the road to the other end, fleeing the cops,” he said.

“‘The cops are coming’, that’s what they were saying, and they were just sprinting away.”

“Stuff like this doesn’t happen in my country, so it was a bit wild.

“I thought, is it a normal thing in Australia?”