Nuisance tenants treated 'firmly'

One Tauranga state housing tenant managed to rack up 29 complaints. Photo / NZME.

More than 1000 complaints to Housing New Zealand have been made about Tauranga state house tenants in the past three years.

From August 2012 to June 2015, 1013 complaints have been made to Housing New Zealand about tenants in Tauranga state houses.

The complaints were for dog nuisance, general antisocial behaviour, illegal activity, property condition and damage, and threats, harassment or intimidation.

This number includes multiple complaints against individual tenants, but complaints are not always substantiated.

In this period, one Tauranga state housing tenant managed to rack up 29 complaints. Ten were for dog nuisance, 14 were for general antisocial behaviour, three were for illegal activity and two were for threats.

Only one tenant was evicted in this time, a result of antisocial behaviour. Fifty tenancies were ended in this period by 90-day notice " 29 for antisocial behaviour and the rest because the lease expired.

Housing New Zealand government relations manager Rachel Kelly said the vast majority of tenants were good neighbours and respected their tenancies.

"When Housing New Zealand receives a complaint about a tenant, staff work with the tenant to resolve the issues. Housing New Zealand is a responsible landlord and takes complaints about antisocial behaviour seriously.

"Antisocial behaviour is not tolerated and we take a firm line on tenants who disturb the peace and quiet of their neighbours."

Tenancy agreements required tenants to not interfere with the "reasonable peace, comfort or the privacy of any person residing in the neighbourhood", which also applied to families and visitors.

"In the event of severe or persistent antisocial behaviour, Housing New Zealand may issue the tenant with a 90-day notice to vacate the property and can suspend them from having a Housing New Zealand home for up to 12 months where appropriate."

A Tauranga man who had issues with a former Housing New Zealand tenant and neighbour throughout last year and the beginning of this year said he was surprised the numbers were not higher.

The man, who has not been identified for legal reasons, and his family called Housing New Zealand numerous times about threats, verbal abuse and rubbish thrown over his fence by his former neighbour.

The troublesome neighbours had their tenancy ended and were moved to another Tauranga property.

"I'm surprised there's not a higher number of abuse complaints. That's what most of our complaints were, threats to get beaten up. A messy neighbour wouldn't have worried me."

He estimated they had made 40 to 50 complaints about different members of the family.

"It's been good since they've moved out. The other neighbours have commented about how it's a much better place since they've gone.

"The new people seem really nice."