Dunedin students say the flat party culture, has grown in response to Otago University acting as the fun police and clamping down on student pubs and bars.
But a leading preventive medicine researcher says flat parties are driven by a proliferation of cheap alcohol and lax liquor laws.
Nineteen-year-old Sophia Crestani died when hundreds of people tried to flee a party on Dundas Street last weekend.
RNZ Otago-Southland reporter Timothy Brown visited a student digs where he spoke to residents about the attraction of flat parties.