State house’s slimy invaders

Disgusted tenant reports ‘dripping’ mushroom and slug infestation to Housing NZ

Nicole Jenkins with Johnny, 1, and London, 4 at the their Housing NZ property in Otara. Jenkins has taken her children to live with her mother while Housing New Zealand assesses the condition of their state house where eldest son Moses, 12, noticed a mushroom (below) sprouting out of her kitchen wall.

An Otara family is being moved out of their state house after a slimy, dripping mushroom sprouted from their kitchen wall. Nicole Jenkins, 30, has lived in the Housing New Zealand property in Piako St for a year, with four young children.

Son Moses, 12, said he first noticed a “little pebble” on the kitchen wall last week and told his mum.

“The next day there was a mushroom. It was standing up, it was slimy, it was dripping stuff,” Moses said.

Jenkins started googling mushrooms, fearing any toxic spores could end up in her kids’ food. “I was starting to freak out, thinking we’re all going to end up in hospital.”

The wall backs on to the laundry and had been damp for a few weeks, but the mushroom sprouted during a spell of warm weather. She’s since found mushrooms have grown in the pot cupboard too.

The mushrooms aren’t the only damp-related problem in the semidetached wooden house. Watch the video at nzherald.co.nz

Slugs and snails crawl into the cupboards through a hole under the sink, leaving slime in the pots and pans.

Mildew and mould grow on the ceiling, on 1-year-old Johnny’s high chair, inside all the cupboards. Jenkins washes the curtains once a month but has just replaced them because the mildew was too bad.

H“It doesn’t matter how much you clean,” she said. “You can be the cleanest person in the world but it happens all the time.”

But the latest infestation had her at her wit’s end. Jenkins contacted Housing New Zealand last week, eventually going into the office to convince her housing manager to visit the house.

“I said ‘hey this is not on, it’s really unhygienic’,” she said. “My housing manager came with another lady. They said they’ll put the job through — they said it’s a 21-day job. “I said ‘ I’m not living in this house for 21 days with mushrooms growing out of my wall’. Especially if my baby grabbed one and ate it.” Yesterday the Herald contacted Housing New Zealand about Jenkins’ house. A few hours later, decontamination experts arrived at the property with several HNZ staff.

Last night Jenkins was told the family had to move out by this morning because it was too dangerous to inspect the house while they lived there.

HNZ has offered her a motel “which was nice” but she’s turned it down in favour of staying with her mum, as she gets anxious in places she doesn’t know.

Leaky water pipes might be the cause of the issue, the housing provider told Jenkins.

In a statement Housing New Zealand regional manager Karen Hitchcock said Jenkins called the customer service centre last Thursday.

“We arranged to visit her the next day. Following this visit, a repair job was logged to resolve this issue.

“Our contractors are visiting the property today to examine further and undertake any repairs that may be necessary.

“If any significant work is required, we would look to work with Ms Jenkins and temporarily re-house her and her family, if required.”