Evicted tenant owes $48,000 after rental home trashed

A tenant has been evicted and owes her landlord almost $50,000 after a Christchurch house was trashed, the Tenancy Tribunal has ruled.

The tribunal said the damage at the house, lived in by Alysha Hannaka Lyn Howe, included ripping out kitchen appliances and flooding.

It was one of the most serious cases of intentional damage by a tenant the tribunal had seen, adjudicator J. Greene said.

The house on Owles Tce in New Brighton was pristine when Howe moved in a year earlier, photos show.

Landlord Yvonne Parker, owner of property investment company Champagne Homes, said she rented the four-bedroom, two-bathroom home to Howe for $450 per week.

Howe had kept the house tidy and clean and mostly kept up with her rent, Parker said, but she started noticing damage after she took a potential buyer through the house.

Concerned her property would be destroyed, she went to the Tenancy Tribunal, which ruled in her favour.

Howe had caused or permitted substantial damage and must leave the property, the tribunal said.

But before Parker could evict Howe, things became much worse.

“Kitchen appliances and other chattels were ripped out and removed from the premises; plumbing fixtures were removed causing substantial damage due to flooding; walls and a door were extensively scribbled on,” the tribunal said in a second ruling, released to the Weekend Herald.

“Carpet throughout the premises was so extensively damaged that it had to be replaced; vanity units were damaged; electrical fittings were ripped out, and there was other significant damage throughout the premises.”

Testing found methamphetamine contamination at levels suggesting P had been smoked in the house.

Howe claimed on social media around that time that she had been burgled.

The tribunal found Howe owed Parker $48,200.

That included the cost of replacing the heat pump, waste disposal unit, laundry tub, carpet, tiles, locks, vanities, lights, smoke alarms, extractor fan, kitchen appliances and cabinets, and fixing the gate, fence, letterbox, walls, garage floors and door, front door and plumbing, and redoing the garden.

Howe owed $1000 in rent and had to pay Parker exemplary damages of $2000 for taking out smoke alarms, which is illegal under the Residential Tenancies Act.

The house was contaminated with methamphetamine, which the judge found was likely caused by Howe as it had been newly decorated before she moved in.

Parker sought only part of the clean-up cost; the tribunal awarded her more than $6000 for decontamination work.

Howe has been the subject of previous Tenancy Tribunal rulings, including a case in Whangarei in 2013 where she was billed $5000 for repairs, clean-up and unpaid rent.

Champagne Homes owns 25 rental properties, mostly near Christchurch, and Parker manages about 15 more.

She believed she had done due diligence before renting Howe the house.

But the company was now increasingly going on to Facebook to get a better idea of “what type of person they are” before renting to prospective tenants.

Parker said she had always been a good landlord during her 20 years in the business, but now she was selling her houses and getting out of the business.

“I’m so over it. I’m exhausted by all this.”

The Weekend Herald has attempted to contact Howe for comment.