Photo: RNZ / Nate McKinnon
A Dunedin student flat horror story is prompting a call to action to prevent others from falling prey to bad landlords and filthy flats.
The Dunedin City Council was warned about 'slumlords' exploiting students and vulnerable people and presented with a possible solution to the perpetual problem during a meeting on Wednesday.
The council also voted to ask the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) to share how it planned to monitor and enforce the Healthy Home rules in Dunedin to ensure rentals were fully compliant.
Zoe Eckhoff was hoping to have a classic Otago flatting experience with her two friends this year, instead it turned into a horror story.
The second year student shared her story during public forum, saying that when she and her friends inspected the flat last year, people were living there and it was messy.
But she thought it would be clean by the time they moved in so they signed the lease and paid rent for a month.
"We found the house in a pretty shocking state, it was mouldy, filthy and completely unprepared," she said.
"The landlord refused to engage with us, entered without permission continuously and ignored our concerns."
They then discovered their landlord had gone to the Tenancy Tribunal more than 20 times.
Things quickly escalated and eventually the police became involved, she said.
They went to the tribunal to challenge the unsafe conditions and serious incidents including the landlord screaming at them.
Despite this, the students were unable to get out of their lease.
But they did not give up.
"Only after hiring a lawyer and installing cameras and recording her entering 85 times in 10 days at all hours of the day and night, including about three in the morning while we were still paying rent, were we able to get out of the lease," Eckhoff said.
It was lucky they were all locals and had somewhere else to go but it took a big toll on them and their families, she said.
"We paid over $5000 for a house we never lived in. We lost study time and faced serious stress and trauma.
"All we wanted was a safe, lawful and respectful tenancy and instead we were exploited by a landlord and let down by a system that's supposed to protect us, and we're just one of many student groups that this has happened to and continues to happen to."
Zoe's mum Pip Eckhoff said it was stressful going through the Tenancy Tribunal process.
"We had an abusive landlord ... and a property that we couldn't move into and the adjudicator made no mention of how to allow us to move in and have the property ready so it really set us up to fail," she said.
They did receive $5000 as part of the process.
But it was not just one landlord, it was a much wider problem, she said.
"Dunedin's housing is declining and unsafe. We have a broken enforcement system and slumlords are exploiting vulnerable people. The impact of ratepayers includes, but is not limited to, fewer students, businesses and families choosing Dunedin as a place to study and live," Eckhoff said.
Minimal landlord fines not deterring bad behaviour - parent
Parent and ratepayer Amanda Dyer said they sought help from nearly every support group across the city, but none could hold the landlord accountable or genuinely help them.
The Tenancy Tribunal was not fit for purpose, Dyer said.
"It's inaccessible, it's emotionally exhausting and inconsistent. Our case was riddled with factual errors and contradictions. The adjudicator appeared frustrated, even blaming our young adults for submitting the wrong kind of application," she said.
The fines for landlords were minimal and did not deter bad behaviour, Dyer said.
"Why spend $20,000 fixing up a property when the risk is just a $2000 fine? The fines determined case-by-case by the local Tribunal demonstrate how the system's enabling the slumlords and others repeat offending."
Pip Eckhoff asked the council to be part of the solution by boosting its capacity to provide independent housing condition reports.
"These reports would help tenants inspect properties like you'd do before buying a house, help tenants in disputes, support MBIE and Tribunal cases and build a report card history on problem landlords," she said.
Earlier this year, MBIE's tenancy compliance and investigations teams inspected more than 50 Dunedin rentals, finding that students often discovered problems with the properties soon after moving in.
Not just 'one appalling landlord, there's a nest of them' - councillor
Councillor Marie Laufiso put forward the motion asking the ministry to share how it planned to ensure rentals met the Healthy Homes rules.
The Healthy Homes standards - which became law in 2019 and kicked in earlier this month - introduced a new benchmark for heating, insulation, ventilation, moisture barriers and drainage, and draught stopping in rental properties.
Laufiso said she saw the toll it took on the tenants and their families to take action against this landlord and this was a way to take action and represent their residents.
Councillor David Benson-Pope said it was a sensible decision as the city had a real problem with cold, damp housing.
"This isn't just about one appalling landlord, there's a nest of them and they're not just in the campus area," he said.
When his son was a student, he lived with his mates in an "ice box" with a little bit of insulation around the manhole but nothing anywhere else, Benson-Pope said.
Now that the rules were in place, he wanted to see them enforced.
Migrants and refugees also vulnerable
Councillor Christine Garey said she was sadly not surprised to see photos of Eckhoff's flat.
Students had raised concerns about speaking up and "rocking the boat" part way through a lease and possibly missing out on the next flat, she said.
Migrants and refugees were also vulnerable, Garey said.
She had heard of a property manager asking a tenant to sign that their property had the Healthy Home standards in place, only for one of the tenants to find that one of the standards had not been met.
The tenant had refused to sign until it was completed, but she said that took courage and could be a difficult step to take.
Councillor Jim O'Malley said he previously had to clean spiderwebs off the outside of a house and clean the carpet to get a deposit back.
He was then told the carpet was not clean enough - despite cleaning it twice - and did not get his deposit back, he said.
He also had to intervene after landlords tried to charge his daughter and her flatmates for damages done long before they moved in, and it was only after he threatened to take them to court that they paid the deposit back, O'Malley said.
"Landlord abuse of tenants is around."
Councillor Andrew Whiley, who is a landlord, said anything that improved healthy homes in Dunedin was important to do and it would only make good landlords look better.
There were five ministry inspectors who were already in town and had started doing inspections, he said.
Landlords had their "heads in the sand" if they only started preparing to follow the rules just before the deadline, he said.
Deputy mayor Cherry Lucas said they needed to signal that they wanted a city of good, healthy rentals.
Councillor Lee Vandervis said the Tenancy Tribunal's job was to ensure properties were fully compliant when there was an issue and they were already doing it.
He did not support the motion.
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