Flatting antics laid bare
EMBATTLED National MP Sam Uffindell was put on notice for living in one of North Dunedin’s filthiest flats, described as a haven for vermin and disease by health inspectors.
The Dundas St flat, inhabited by Mr Uffindell and five other male students in 2004, prominently displayed a coat hook with women’s underwear hanging from it.
A studentled movement aimed at tackling sexual violence has ‘‘highly condemned’’ the display of underwear and said it was example of behaviour which propped up rape culture.
Mr Uffindell was stood down from the party’s caucus this week after a woman he flatted with in Dunedin in 2003 told RNZ he was an aggressive bully who once pounded on her locked bedroom door, screaming obscenities, until she fled through her window.
It has since emerged Mr Uffindell’s Dundas St flat the following year was visited by a Dunedin City Council health inspector three times while he and his flatmates competed for the title of Dunedin’s filthiest flat in a competition organised by a now defunct website.
The house was considered a health hazard by then council environmental health inspector Judy Austin, who raised concerns severe sickness could result from accumulated rubbish which provided an ideal environment for maggots, flies and rats.
In particular, concerns were raised that rat urine could spread leptospirosis, a notifiable disease.
The residents were ordered to tidy up within a week or risk having contractors being called in their expense.
Mr Uffindell, then a thirdyear arts and commerce student, said their toilet probably had not been cleaned all year but had stopped discharging into their backyard after some plumbing work was done.
He admitted the tenants had not always been responsible but said the flat was substandard.
‘‘This place doesn’t demand your respect.
‘‘If it was a nice house we would treat it nice,’’ Mr Uffindell said.
Thursdays in Black Otago director Amelia Hamilton said while the display on the coat hook was not recent, or a direct incident of sexual violence, it spoke to an ‘‘awful rape culture’’ on New Zealand campuses, including in Otago’’.
‘‘These behaviours have not disappeared between 2004 and now.’’
Mr Uffindell’s former flatmate in 2003 said the screaming episode was not an isolated incident but part of an ongoing pattern of bullying and abusive behaviour fuelled by drug and alcohol abuse.
Her father, who visited the flat the next day, said the flat had been ‘‘completely trashed’’ and left without a stick of furniture.
In a statement issued late on Tuesday night, Mr Uffindell admitted his flatting situation fell apart midway through 2003, and two flatmates left, but denied engaging in ‘‘intimidatory or bullying’’ behaviour while studying at the University of Otago.
‘‘When I was a student at Otago I enjoyed a student lifestyle, which included drinking and, at times, smoking marijuana,’’ Mr Uffindell said.
He earlier told media he had been a bully in high school after it emerged he was expelled from Kings College, in Auckland, for beating a younger boarder with bed legs.
Since the allegations about Mr Uffindell’s behaviour in 2003 came to light, he has been stood down from the National Party caucus, pending a twoweek investigation into the allegations.
A spokesman for National leader Christopher Luxon referred questions about the 2004 flat to the National Party.
The party did not respond by deadline last night and Mr Uffindell did not respond to questions either. — Additional reporting RNZ