Meth: Private social housing also moving

Community social housing provider Accessible Properties says it will follow Housing New Zealand in changing its meth standards.

But a lawyer says private providers will continue to act more harshly than the publicly-owned Housing New Zealand (HNZ).

Accessible Properties, a subsidiary of intellectual disability services provider IHC, owns most of the social housing in Tauranga, after being sold it by Housing New Zealand in 2016. In late 2017, the provider threw Timothy Dalton-Edwards out of his home after a positive meth reading on a test he asked for himself.

Last week a Government report made it clear that HNZ and many other landlords had been testing to a standard that was far too low, resulting in tens of millions of dollars in wasted testing and clean-up and hundreds of tenants needlessly moved on or evicted from properties. The Chief Science Advisor’s (CSA) report showed there was no evidence of anyone ever getting sick from a house or space where meth had only been smoked, not produced. For years HNZ had used a Ministry of Health guideline meant as a standard to clean up properties where meth had been produced as a trigger for cleaning when only use was suspected.

HNZ immediately raised its trigger to 15ug per

100cm2, in line with the report’s recommendations – and said it would only test when heavy use or production was suspected.

Accessible Properties chief executive Greg Orchard said it would also raise their standard.

‘‘We aim to utilise the best advice and evidence available when undertaking our work,’’ Orchard said.

‘‘The CSA’s report is now the best advice we have and we will use the findings and recommendation to revise our policies and practice including assessing when we will undertake future testing.’’

But tenant and mother Natachia Millan said the news was too little too late. She told Stuff last week she had received a 90-day termination notice from her property after a positive meth reading.

Accessible Properties had taken Millan to the Tenancy Tribunal over rent arrears and the issue of whether or not they could do a follow-up test after finding a cumulative methamphetamine reading of

140ug but failed to terminate the tenancy. It is not clear if any individual spot reading was over the new 15ug standard and Accessible Properties refused to comment on the individual case.

Millan said some boarders had possibly smoked meth on her property but she had not and there was no suspicion of production.

‘‘I just feel like I’ve been picked on like the rest of them. They just want us out of the neighbourhood,’’ Millan said. ‘‘We’ve had no health problems at all.’’

Unlike a regular eviction, a 90-day termination of a tenancy does not require a cause – as long as landlords aren’t discriminating they can end a tenancy for any reason, if they give 90 days notice.

Lawyer Michael Sharp, who represented Millan at the tribunal and another Accessible Properties tenant all the way to the High Court, said cases like Millan’s showed thelegal loophole of the 90-day notice.

‘‘They’re acting perfectly legally. New Zealand is unlike other countries in that our social housing providers don’t have to have any reason to terminate tenants.’’