Wayward tenant wants to pay back debts
A woman accused of leaving a trail of filth, felines, fraud and unpaid rent in her wake around Wellington, faces her fourth eviction in six months.
Abbey Griffiths’ former flatmates and landlords say they are speaking out so others don’t fall for her tricks. Those include claims of fraudulent messages, thousands of dollars in rent taken but not passed on to landlords, abandoning cats, and getting evicted owing thousands.
With the exception of abandoning cats – which she said she took with her or rehomed – Griffiths said she had ‘‘no good explanation for my patterns’’, before going on to list high rent in Wellington, mental health issues, unemployment, and ‘‘next to nothing’’ government assistance.
‘‘Living on the fly has been the only way to get by, but I am now making a conscious and concerted effort to get my act together, pay back debts and live responsibly,’’ she said in an email to Stuff.
She claimed to have repaid some of her owed rent, although one landlord, Keith Powell, who she had apparently repaid in full, said he had seen only about onethird of the owed money. Another landlord said he hadn’t seen a cent.
Tenancy Tribunal papers show Griffiths was evicted from an Island Bay flat in January owing $3392 in rent. Griffiths, who works as a ‘‘payment solutions specialist’’, then moved to Newtown.
Flatmate Rose Sowerby said between late January and earlyMarch she gave Griffiths $960 bond, one week’s rent-in-advance, then eight weeks worth of rent – totalling $3030. It was just before eviction that she found out none of that money had been passed to the landlord. Tenancy Tribunal papers show the pair were evicted owing $2911. That landlord confirmed he never saw any rent nor bond and, as far as he knew, ‘‘Abbey was pocketing it herself’’.
Tenancy Tribunal papers show Griffiths – or Griffins on these papers – was evicted owing
$2399. From there, she moved to Kingston, where landlord Dean Jackson is working through eviction proceedings.
While 2018 had seen a flurry of unpaid landlords, they were not the first. Documents show that Griffiths was kicked out of a Miramar flat with two others in
2016 owing $1586 in rent. Flatmate Bethany Beeston said when Griffiths moved she dumped her five cats, which had spent the entire time in her room, outside.