A group of mates have sparked outrage after boasting online about inflicting $60,000 damage in a house-trashing party.
The video footage, posted on YouTube this week, shows the ruined house after the men had urinated on the carpets, lit fires in the lounge and smashed the windows of the Hamilton flat.
Waikato Institute of Technology film student Lance Chapman interviewed tenants Sam Nash and Davis Boyce as well as two friends for an assignment.
The video, which appeared on YouTube on Thursday, quickly attracted dozens of negative comments from people who thought they were an embarrassment to New Zealand. The video was removed after the Herald on Sunday contacted the tenants.
Nash, 23, said they lived in filth at 106 Firth St in Hamilton about five years ago but had since grown up. "I'm not like this any more and neither are the other guys," Nash said.
The men, then aged 18 and 19, were working as tradesmen and lived on beer and rice risotto for 10 months.
When they got drunk they would smash bottles on the floor, throw beer bottles at passing cars and kick doors down to use as firewood.
"We never cleaned as a bunch of boys [do] when they are young so it was always a messy, crappy flat and then we just had huge parties ... so things got smashed," Nash said.
The house was owned by Alistair Senior who died last year. After receiving an eviction notice, the tenants trashed the place in a week-long drinking session dubbed "the point of no return". They smashed the chimney and lit a fire in the lounge that they eventually put out by urinating on the flames.
"When I lit the fire in the lounge, we pissed it out, that would have stunk," Nash said.
"We could have fixed up the house in that time but we decided not to, so we made things a whole lot worse. It was easier and a lot more fun. We just got boozed and did stupid stuff.
"We definitely went a bit overboard but we could have done a lot more. We could have completely demolished it."
Nash said the young men were taken to the tenancy tribunal court and ordered to pay $10,400, although the damage was worth $60,000.
He said the letting agent claimed insurance on much of the damage. "There is a law [which states] she could only charge us $12,000 so we got off pretty easy really, and that was minus the bond which was about $1600 ... we are paying $10 a week until it is paid off."
Nash said the young men never felt bad about the damage until they saw the agent break down in court.
"It was like 'oh man that probably wasn't too smooth'."
The present landlord, who wanted to be known only as Derek, said he was aware of the extensive damage before taking over the house. He said Senior would be "turning in his grave".