Landlords whoop it up at annual Mould Awards
Wellington’s glitterati were out in force on Saturday night for one of the most glamorous events of the year – the booming rental property industry’s excellence awards ceremony, the Wellington Mould Awards. Some attendees grumbled that tickets were 30 per cent more expensive than last year, but organisers said the rise was entirely justified and, if they didn’t like it, they could go somewhere else.
Competition was fierce for the Wellington Rental Mould. Holes in ceilings and walls competed with mouldy bathrooms. But the winner, a tiny central city bolthole, impressed the judges with its combination of sleaziness, compactness, odour, and the high weekly rental it commanded.
The Heritage Mould section was dominated by older properties bought many years ago for capital gain by enterprising landlords who had done absolutely no work on them. The winner of the Mould award, for the second year in a row, was a draughty, dilapidated 1904 Newtown cottage whose four tenants all contracted pneumonia.
The video excerpt of the landlord’s trick of being able to keep a piece of paper suspended in mid-air by the draught coming up through the floor had the audience in hysterics. However, this year the winner faced strong competition from an overcrowded 1912 Mt Cook student flat, known to inhabitants as ‘‘Meningitis Mansion’’, which lost only because the mould in the bathroom was not as toxic as the landlord claimed.
Many landlords were disgruntled by the high prestige of the Heritage Mould. ‘‘Everyone’s going on about old rentals,’’ said Bill ‘‘Crusty’’ Bedsheet, ‘‘but my modern rentals have leaky building syndrome, paper-thin walls and peeling paint.’’ Organisers assured him a ‘‘Worst Hastily Built New Rental’’ category will be introduced next year.
The Creative Mould (Design) was also hotly contested. A few years ago, the winners converted lounges and dining rooms into bedrooms to increase total yield. But this is now standard. To even be nominated for a Mould award, landlords must now show exceptional imagination.
Petra Quadlavic, who owns a 4-bedroom, 9-tenant flat in Berhampore, came up with a novel way to turn a kitchen into a bedroom, with the oven providing extra heating, and some clever plumbing allowing the sink to double as a shower and bidet. She also took home a Sustainable Mould.
But the winner, Te Aro Wharepakaru, who owns a small Kelburn villa, managed to invent a bathtub that converted to a bed when not being used. The clever landlord is apparently seeking sponsorship from Bed, Bath and Beyond.
Residential Leak Mould Award was also hotly contested. A Johnsonville house with a water leak ended up giving the tenant an electric shock, hospitalising them. Another finalist, whose rental sprang a sewage leak in the aptly named suburb of Waterloo, not only caused one tenant to contract hepatitis but another to slip and sprain their wrist. However, the winner was the owner of a poky Karori student flat where an internal gas leak endangered the life of all eight inhabitants by both poisoning and combustion.
As expected, Wellington Water cleaned up in the Corporate Leak Mould Award, and the Worst Mass Rental (Over 100 Inhabitants) Award was dominated by university halls of residence, which also scored well in the Security Mould category, as did Wellington City Council.
Acommon criticism of the Wellington Mould Awards is that they sometimes favour Wellington rentals over Porirua and Hutt Valley. But the trend was well and truly bucked this year, with Lower Hutt cleaning up in the Ugliest Commercial Rental Mould, and Porirua winning Emerging Mould. ‘‘Porirua definitely punches above its rental weight,’’ said Elsdon landlord Rob ‘‘Take it or Leave it’’ Rakrenta, when he accepted the Worst Apartment Block Mould Award.
The Most Enterprising Landlord Mould category is a crowd favourite, and this year included one who stole the tenants’ TV to make up for rent arrears, and another who walked into a tenant’s bedroom unannounced. But the overall winner, who asked tenants to look after her placenta in their freezer, was the clear favourite with the amused judges.
But not all landlords were happy with the judges’ decisions. ‘‘The media lump all property investors as bad guys,’’ argued Bryce Gecko, of Boomer Investments. ‘‘Most of us are simply investing money where we can get the best return, and we’re not breaking any laws. Rather than blaming property investors, how about looking at the system created by the government, which has favoured owners over renters for decades.’’
The judges heartily agreed with Bryce, which is why they awarded this and former governments the Supreme Mould Award.
After a super-cheap instant noodles dinner cooked on a faulty stove, guests were entertained by a covers band until midnight, after which they were evicted and not given their bond back.
After a supercheap instant noodles dinner cooked on a faulty stove, guests ... were evicted and not given their bond back.