Mum furious over unsafe fence
Warning: This story contains an image some might find dis tressing
A Tu¯ a¯ kau mother in community housing has been left furious after her daughter’s foot became impaled on an unsafe fence despite months of complaints to Ka¯ inga Ora.
As they waited the agonising 40 minutes for emergency services, Chantelle Christie did what she could to keep her daughter’s mind from the pain.
‘‘I told her ‘it’s going to be OK baby, just breathe’. She was really brave but, at one point she had a bit of a freak out saying ‘I don’t want to die’.’’
What’s most upsetting, to her, is she believes the incident was avoidable.
It was back in August when Christie first complained to Crown community housing provider Ka¯ inga Ora that their property’s fence posed a danger to her children. She says her sevenyear-old daughter, Gabriella, and one-year-old son, Boston, first discovered holes in the wire fence.
‘‘I didn’t realise there was a gap in the fence until one day . . . I came outside and [Boston] was next door,’’ she says.
Christie contacted Ka¯ inga Ora the next day.
‘‘I specifically told them it’s very dangerous. I made it very clear I’m worried about my children’s safety.’’
According to the agency’s website, tenants can expect general maintenance repairs 10 days after a complaint is lodged, however, the wait time is shortened to four hours for issues that affect health and safety.
But Christie says two months went by and no work was done. Growing frustrated, in October she called again.
‘‘They told me the job was cancelled . . . they gave me no reason. But they said the job would be done soon.’’
During this time, Christie was able to halt her one-year-old’s misadventures by using heavy objects as stopgaps in the fence.
But she knew attempts to stop her daughter would be futile.
So I showed her how to do it safely . . . holding onto the concrete posts.’’
But seven-year-olds don’t always follow instructions, and with the fence still unrepaired, on December 6 Gabriella jumped over a section that held the waiting fish-hook shaped wire.
‘‘I knew it was serious because of the way she screamed and didn’t stop.’’
In the moments after the snag, she describes her daughter’s distress as she hung upside down, the frantic search for wire cutters and the relief of hearing emergency sirens.
At the hospital, they were told Gabriella was lucky. The wire missed her foot’s tendons and bones.
Christie informed Ka¯ inga Ora that day, and 48 hours later the fence was replaced.
However, she says the work missed wires pointing at her son’s eye height.
‘‘I just thought ‘what the hell is going on’,’’ she says.
She says this isn’t the first time she’s had issues with the state landlord.
The family moved into the property in July last year. She says she received a phone call telling her she had 24 hours to inspect the property through the windows and sign the paperwork.
‘‘They said there wasn’t anyone to show me around . . . take it or leave it,’’ she says.
As a result, she received an unpleasant surprise when opening the door to their new home.
‘‘All I could smell was cat p**s,’’ she says.
It hit you I walked through the house, the cupboards, the carpet was drenched in cat urine.’’
With the moving truck waiting, she piled her furniture into one room, informing Ka¯ inga Ora the house wasn’t liveable.
‘‘I said ‘I’m not having my babies in there.’ I know the dangers to your health breathing in ammonia . . . I know a carpet cleaner that got very sick from that.’’
It took over a week for the property to be re-carpeted, during that time she says Ka¯ inga Ora staff told her they were still required to pay rent.
Ka¯ inga Ora area manager Julia Tou said they had apologised to the family in person for the mishap with the fence.
‘‘It was a matter of a job that was recorded and planned to be done not being moved correctly within the organisation,’’ says Tou.
‘‘The job was not cancelled but moved from one part of the business to another and the notes regarding the urgency of the work were missed.’’
But Tou denies Christie wasn’t given access to view the property before moving in and says the smell of cat urine wasn’t detected by contractors cleaning the property between tenancies.
‘‘However, the house was kept completely shut for a number of days prior to the new tenancy and this may [have] been why the odour was more noticeable.’’
‘‘The carpet was replaced within a short timeframe. We are working on credit for our customer for two weeks’ rent.’’
Two weeks later and Gabriella is well on her way to recovery. But as she hops around the family’s dining room, she says on a scale of one to ten, the pain of the accident would be a hundred.
Her mother wants the incident to serve as a lesson so Ka¯ inga Ora prioritise tenant safety concerns.