The resident: They partied in the stairwell . . . at 3am

NICK Burns Cumming lives in a studio flat in Edinburgh’s Grassmarket and says Airbnb has become a ‘plague’ in the area.

Nick, right, said: ‘There are 20 flats in this building, eight on Airbnb. It’s a plague, and it changes the city centre. People just come and go for a weekend.

‘It’s just constant noise, especially with short lets.

‘When I moved in, everybody knew each other, it was great. I had a heart attack earlier this year and could have done with a neighbour around, but I didn’t know anybody.’

He said the worst period of the week was between Thursday and Tuesday.

Nick, 60, said: ‘At the weekend, a party ended at 7.30am. There were three girls from Liverpool in a one-bedroom flat. They were just up for a party. They don’t care.

‘Last year there were about eight or ten people in their 20s having a party in the stairwell, shooting up heroin, smoking dope.

‘There were needles on the staircase, it was a nightmare. I could hear them having sex on the stairs at 3am.

‘When it’s 6am and the music is still banging it’s hellish. I’ve been told to b***** off – well, that’s a polite way of putting it.

‘And it’s not just latenight music. It’s the clatter of these wheeled suitcases up and down the stairs. It just goes through you.

‘Our front door has been repaired six or seven times in the last year because of people constantly clattering it.’