A house that was nearly sold by Housing New Zealand to a private buyer, despite being contaminated by methamphetamine, is being repaired and may return to the market.
A Ruapehu man was close to buying the property in Ohakune from Housing NZ late last year, but he became suspicious and media reports he had read prompted him to get the house tested for meth contamination before signing on the dotted line.
"I just had a gut feeling," the man said.
The test returned positive and he said he was lucky to escape a costly repair bill. He wanted people to be aware of the issue and believed HNZ should be testing its houses before putting them on the market.
HNZ general manager governance Greg Groufsky said methamphetamine testing on its houses was not a matter of course but did happen if there was reasonable evidence to suggest contamination.
In this case, HNZ did do its own testing on the Miro St property after the prospective buyer's tests, and that also confirmed the presence of the drug.
Mr Groufsky said the property had been taken off the market and work was under way to repair the house. Once the work was complete HNZ would decide whether to put it back on the market or not.
"Housing New Zealand places great importance on the safety of its properties and tenants and would not knowingly place a methamphetamine-affected property on the market," Mr Groufsky said.
"Where we have reasonable evidence to believe there might be a presence of methamphetamine in the house, we will test before placing it on the market."
He said HNZ figures at the start of the year indicated less that one per cent of HNZ properties had been found to have been used for methamphetamine production.