Kitchen stink divides

Experts are divided over whether a bad odour in a Wellington man’s kitchen comes from a rat carcass.

Media were barred from taking photos as two Pestproof Pest Control staff, who had previously worked at the house, took turns sniffing inside Aro Valley resident Stuart MacIntosh’s cupboards yesterday during a special court hearing.

They gave Tenancy Tribunal adjudicator Brent Smallbone differing opinions over whether the smell was likely to be from a rotten carcass or mustiness from under the floorboards.

MacIntosh, 32, has taken property management company Quinovic to the tribunal seeking three weeks’ worth of rent as compensation. He claims the company failed to get exterminators to adequately deal with a recurring stink that made him feel too sick to eat from his kitchen.

One of the pest experts smelt something weird as soon as he entered the kitchen before sniffing in a cupboard.

‘‘It’s just a dead-animal smell. It could be a dead hedgehog or anything.’’

But his colleague thought ‘‘it’s more a musty smell of humidity, of old houses’’.

‘‘I can’t even say there is one per cent carcass.’’

MacIntosh said the smell had lessened to about a ‘‘2/100’’ over the week. It was the third time since March that he has had a problem with a smell.

He likes the house and wants to stay there – provided Quinovic sorts the issue.

Quinovic Kent Terrace principal Matt Watson said any allegation ‘‘that we’ve sat on our hands and not tried to do anything’’ was wrong as the company had called in experts in the past.

Smallbone expected his by the end of October. decision