Unwittingly living in a meth house
A woman knocks on your door one day and tells you, out of the blue, that your house is contaminated with P.
That happened to Christchurch mother Michelle Gilchrist and her twin 2-year-old daughters on Friday at their home in Edgeware.
‘‘I had a knock on the door from the previous tenant and she informed and provided me with black and white test results of this property. She said to me: ‘you know this place is contaminated, right?’ I said: ‘excuse me?’
‘‘I am sickened and disgusted with these results. You can’t even describe how this has turned our whole lives upside down.’’
The tenant was stopping by to pick up some dog collars she had left behind.
Gilchrist wasn’t aware at the time, but the day before she moved in on March 2, a P testing company had found the house to be contaminated.
The results showed that the house has 14.34 micrograms per
100 square centimetres – almost
10 times the maximum legal level in a house.
Standards New Zealand states that contamination levels should not exceed 1.5 micrograms per 100 square centimetres.
The house is owned and let by Champagne Homes, which commissioned Methamphetamine Assessors NZ to test it. The company found on March 1 that the house was contaminated and sent the report to Champagne Homes on March 5, three days after Gilchrist moved in.
Gilchrist said her furniture and other belongings are now contaminated and she will have to ditch them.
‘‘This house is highly contaminated. Not to mention the fact that my babies and family have been living in these inhabitable conditions. I’m now flat broke. I’ve been told I can give two days notice and leave as this is a major health and safety issue.
‘‘I have no money for another bond until I can sort all this mess and get my bond back from this house.’’
Champagne Homes owner Yvonne Parker said she didn’t think the house was contaminated when the previous tenants left, but was now routinely testing all her properties.
Parker has owned two previous contaminated properties, which she decontaminated with sugar soap and paint. The decontamination was confirmed by P assessors.
She said while she was applying for the P report for the Hills Rd property, she also cleaned the house with sugar soap and painted it, not because she thought it was P contaminated but because the previous tenants had smoked inside.
‘‘We weren’t concerned. We cleaned it for another reason, not because of P. With this house I had no idea that it was P contaminated.’’
Parker said she had compensated Gilchrist by giving her free rent for several weeks.
Parker believes the house is now decontaminated because she finished cleaning the property after the P inspection, and the sugar-soap tactic had worked on other previously contaminated houses.
She said that was why she did not inform Gilchrist.
‘‘Because we’d fixed it. As far as we were concerned. We thought we’d eradicated it and it was all fine.’’
Parker disputes liability for Gilchrist’s belongings, saying Gilchrist told her they had been contaminated at a previous address. Gilchrist denies she ever said that.
‘‘I am sickened and disgusted with these results.’’
Michelle Gilchrist