Irish students blamed for trashing rental house in San Francisco
A San Francisco-based landlady has described her distress after a property rented to a group of foreign students, identified as Irish, was allegedly vandalised causing thousands of dollars worth of damage.
Ritu Vohra said she rented her property in the Sunset District area of the city - which thanks to a tech boom has the most expensive real estate in the United States - to a group of Irish students after they appealed to her to 'give her a break' on the rent.
"I was doing it to be nice," she told local news channel KPIX 5, a CBS affiliate.
However, according to the CBS SF Bay Area news report, broadcast yesterday, she was greeted by scenes of destruction after the students left.
Footage broadcast by CBS indicates damage to the property including broken windows, chandeliers and furniture. A golf club appeared to have been responsible for holes smashed into the walls, while rubbish and debris - including used condoms, dirty underwear and an envelope marked 'personal property of arrested person only' - were also strewn around the rooms.
“The security deposit would cover nothing – not even the windows,” said a visibily distressed Vohra.
“How drunk would you have to be? How angry would you have to be? How violent would you have to be?
“I have nothing personal against them. But I at least want to recover the damage they’ve done.”
KPIX 5 reporter Christin Ayers wrote that the Irish Consulate in San Francisco had vowed to expend 'every effort' on catching those responsible.
"Officials said the offending students could be prohibited from ever returning to the United States," she reported.
Meanwhile Twitter users expressed outrage at the footage, pointing to the reputational damage it could cause.
Wouldn’t to kick the shite out of these J1’ers who wrote off this persons home in SF http://t.co/tiQNG7rZf2
— Pat (@patphelan) September 20, 2014
