At ‘breaking point’ over mouldy, rotting rental

A DUNEDIN woman who wants to escape her mouldy, cold and rotting home says she had faced the prospect of spending nights in the car with her son as there was nowhere else to go.

Rose, who did not want her full name revealed, and her 12yearold son moved into the Clyde Hill property in April, but soon discovered mould and water damage as winter settled in.

She said she was forced to seek emergency housing to escape a damp home that made her family sick.

‘‘I can’t stay here because I’m just sick and I’m not eating and I’m stressed and I’m at breaking point,’’ Rose said.

The threebedroom house was not worth $330 a week when it was making her and her son sick, she said.

Rose said she fought to get out of the lease, but stayed in the house as there was nowhere else to go.

She applied for several other rental properties, but there were 20 to 25 people at the viewings she went to.

With no new home to move into, she considered living in her car and approached Work and Income and Housing New Zea land about emergency accommodation.

When RNZ visited the home, there was water damage in the lounge, and most of the wooden windowsills were rotten.

A couple of bowls and towels lay around in case water leaked through — but she said it was absorbed by the rotten wood in the ceiling.

Every time heavy rain or snow is predicted, Rose worries whether her kitchen ceiling will hold up.

‘‘The worst part would probably have to be the kitchen ceiling. Yeah, I have made thumb holes and finger holes by just going to touch and my fingers have gone through it and that’s the entire ceiling,’’ Rose said.

‘‘This is my biggest worry — that it’s going to come down,’’ she said.

‘‘When I first moved in I noticed the moisture and I was told it was because the carpets had been done.

‘‘I needed to move in quickly, so they’ve said that, because of that, they’ve let me move in when they weren’t done. I never asked for that — I was quite adamant I didn’t want to move into a house that was wet,’’ Rose said

She raised the issues with the realtor, Mana Property Management, which told her to contact the Prime Minister if she was not happy, she said.

RNZ made multiple attempts to contact Mana Property Management on Friday without success.

The management group sent Rose a letter in August saying it would repair the house, including replacing the roof over the kitchen, sending in mould specialists and requesting builder quotes to fix the windowsills and stiff windows.

The letter also stated Rose might not have met her responsibilities as a tenant in terms of reporting damage and keeping the house dry.

However, Rose said she ran a dehumidifier and a heat pump on the dry cycle, and aired out the house most days, but it was not working and it was costly.

She said she was considering taking the management group to the Tenancy Tribunal.

Rose wanted the real estate company to take responsibility and admit the house should not have been rented out in its current condition.

‘‘I moved into this house in the good faith that going through a real estate agency you were guaranteed a good house, and instead they’ve just blamed me for it.’’

Out of options, and facing moving into her car, Rose has been allowed to move into a twobedroom unit at the retirement village she works at as a temporary solution until she can find a new home to rent.

New healthy homes standards — which will set minimum requirements for heating, insulation, ventilation and moisture in residential rental properties — will be in place by July 1 next year.