Ireland’s Minister for Foreign Affairs has led the wave of criticism of a group of Irish students after a distraught San Francisco landlord revealed their destruction of her rental property.
Sunset District landlord Ritu Vohra saw a wild end of summer party before the students returned home to Ireland caused tens of thousands of dollars worth of damage.
And Ireland’s Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade Charlie Flanagan has condemned the wanton destruction of the house.
The Irish Consulate in San Francisco has also offered to pay for the damage and attempt to find the culprits.
The smashing of the US house by Irish students is shocking deplorable & unacceptable however not representative of our young Irish abroad.
— Charlie Flanagan (@CharlieFlanagan) September 21, 2014
Irish Consul officials in San Francisco have vowed to help track down those responsible for the damage.
Philip Grant, Consulate General of Ireland in San Francisco, said: “This is not acceptable behaviour.”
On Twitter Irish, at home and abroad, vented their disgust:
Name and shame them: Nasty.Irish Students Trash SF Rental House Then Leave Country http://t.co/Dj4n0HySwH
— Ger Ryan (@TherealGerRyan) September 21, 2014
This is terrible! Coming from another country and living in the States you are an ambassador of your country you... http://t.co/9zyPxY4avR
— ♫ Kimberly ♫ (@M_Scriptette) September 22, 2014
Irish students accused of trashing San Francisco house-must be named and shamed if guilty & kicked out of university http://t.co/wswn0n1bwo
— Denis J.Buckley (@irishineurope) September 20, 2014
Similarly on Reddit, the public showed their disapproval for the students behavior.
The user namedYooklid said “I've lived in SF for 12 years and every year I've see the reputation of Irish people get progressively worse because of guys like this. Someone else mentioned it as being a tiger cub thing and I fully believe that. I came on a j1 14 years ago and we had a pretty good reputation, but it all started going downhill once SD became a popular destination in the early 2000s. One year a bunch of lads started a riot on the beach. A few weeks ago I had to call down a bunch of lads as they were trying to intimidate a girl as she wouldn't serve them beer because they were obviously too far gone. All fr Cork, all wearing the same club GAA shirts. :-/ doubt that would be acceptible in Cork, not sure why they thought it would be here.
]ishbot said “Where I went to university in California, the reputation of Irish people got pretty bad because of things like this.
There were entire apartment complexes that started banning international residents because of the large groups of young Irish kids that would come in just in the summers, stuff 15 people into a 2 bedroom apartment, party 7 days a week and just absolutely trash everything.
Definitely gave a bad reputation to the actual study abroad students from Ireland.”
The website Breitbart said pregnant landlord Vohra was distraught when she first checked the house out after the students had fled.
She said: “They just smashed the house. The apartment looked like a war zone with broken walls, damaged ceilings, shattered windows, and garbage strewn throughout the house.”
The report says the banister leading up to the second floor was destroyed with its wooden columns and rail chopped up and thrown into a pile like it was firewood.
Evidence suggested that a golf club was used to demolish items in the house while someone swung from a fixture on the ceiling and dislodged it, leaving it hanging just above head.
Vohra added that the security deposit from the renters would not cover one of the windows that were busted.
She said: “It’s okay if you have a great sex life, but leaving dirty condoms and dirty panties on the bedroom floor?
“I was doing it to be nice but this is mini terrorism, this is an act of terrorism on me when you destroy my house like this.”
The Irish consulate told the website that they will pursue the students and attempt to get full compensation for the damages. The individuals involved may never be allowed back into the US.
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