"In the morning we hear paintball guns. I don't think they sleep," Acevedo said. "There's a pool outside. Whenever they're hanging out by the pool, the sound just carries. We can hear them shouting 'chug, chug, chug.' I've heard someone throwing up at night outside."
The men cruise through the neighbourhood in a beat-up gray car emblazoned with the house's name. Neighbours described how the quiet street has been transformed into what one said "feels like Coachella." This echoes similar complaints made in 2017 against YouTuber Jake Paul's West Hollywood party house, but with a new twist: The Sway House members have repeatedly ignored social distancing guidelines during the coronavirus pandemic, even throwing large parties and posting about them on Instagram.
This has caused further problems for their neighbours. One neighbour said that women have shown up on her doorstep at least four times in the middle of the night after mistaking her home for that of the Sway House. (The New York Times agreed to grant her anonymity in order to speak without repercussion.) She said she and her husband feel scared and violated. (Cellphone service on the street is limited, and several houses do not have clear street numbers, so it is easy to confuse one address for another.)
Renee Maltz, 62, has noticed an uptick in foot traffic in the area since the social media stars moved in.
"You see the youngest people in the street, just standing," she said. "They stand there sort of zombielike."
Her husband, Jeff Charlston, 70, said the house has become a sort of a nightclub on occasion.
"I've seen girls parking down the street then walking down in groups, almost as if they don't know if they're going to get in," he said.
Two neighbours say they have confronted the members of the Sway House directly about the chaos. Others have called the police to file noise complaints. After Acevedo texted Hall on May 21 to let him know that she was once again filing a noise complaint with the Los Angeles Police Department, he chided her by responding, "Aren't you the babysitter?"
"I felt very powerless," Acevedo said.
"To our knowledge there have been no formal noise complaints," said Warren Lentz, CEO of TalentX, who manages the house's members and provides them with the house in exchange for content. "We have been in frequent communication with both the LAPD and city counsel to ensure the safety of the neighbourhood. In order to follow proper protocol, we hired security for our clients and the house."
The owner of the property did not return a request for comment.
In interviews, several neighbours said that they wanted to resolve things with Sway House members directly but were concerned about possible repercussions.
"There's an undercurrent of fear and intimidation both from all the stories in the media about people getting doxxed, swatted, harassed, especially if you're a woman, which many of these neighbours are who are dealing with this stuff are," Runchal said. "With fans and actual people mistakenly showing up to our houses, there's a virtual and a physical threat."
Members of the Sway House regularly hang out in an empty lot across the street from their rental property. A couch has appeared in front of the lot. Some neighbours say they have seen Sway House members and their guests hanging out there, in some cases smoking.
"It's like they're testing limits for the very first time in their life," Maltz said.
Given all that is going on in the world, people who live near the Sway House said they felt bad complaining about unneighbourly behaviour. But those on the neighbourhood group chat were pleased to learn Saturday night that at least two of the house's members, Richards and Hossler, would be moving out and into their own apartment.
Their departure followed a recent road trip across America that resulted in the arrest of two house members on drug charges, as well as some online backlash. (Addressing the backlash in a Medium post Sunday, Richards wrote: "I would like to apologise to everyone: my supporters, my Sway House family, my team, and my community. I let the fame get to me; I allowed the LA partying lifestyle to consume me; and I lost my way for a bit. I forgot why I was here.") Residents took it as a sign that perhaps things would soon return to some semblance of normalcy.
"Things have quieted down significantly in the past few days," Charlston said.
"I feel bad when I'm like, 'You don't belong here,'" Acevedo said, acknowledging that she too is a "guest" in the neighbourhood. "But I wish they cared more about anything other than getting famous on the internet."
Written by: Taylor Lorenz
Photographs by: Michelle Groskopf
© 2020 THE NEW YORK TIMES
