When it comes to the damage and litter left behind by weekend revelers, Guelph’s mayor isn’t mincing words.

“These people should be ashamed of themselves,” he said Monday.

“That’s how you’re going to integrate into the community when you’re guests in our city?”

This past weekend was Homecoming weekend at the University of Guelph. It brought thousands of people to the university area, with the partying spilling into many other sections of the city.

Guelph police say they dealt with an “extremely high call volume,” with a total of 944 calls to police over the course of the weekend. They said Homecoming was responsible for the increase from usual levels – an increase they called unsurprising, given the recent history of Homecoming weekend.

Finding a mess in her neighbourhood, Katie McLean spent part of her weekend cleaning up what other people had left behind.

“For me, the biggest concern is the glass bottles. We saw a couple that were smashed, which was really unfortunate,” she said.

“You don’t want to be walking through the grass and shredding your foot up.”

Guthrie says he’s been inundated with complaints about bad behaviour, including one from an elderly woman who said a chair was stolen from her front porch and a rock was thrown through her window.

The weekend’s events also prompted a response from university president Franco Vaccarino, who said in a posting on the school’s website that there had been a “significant negative impact on members of our community” as a result of Homecoming weekend partying.

“I would like to personally, and on behalf of the university, apologize to any members of the Guelph community who were affected negatively,” he wrote.

Guthrie says he’s been in touch with police and student leaders about finding a way to curb those behaviours in the future, although he suspects many of the people behind the worst damage were visitors from out-of-town schools.

With reporting by Tina Yazdani