Comedians homeless after tree crashes through roof of Mt Albert, Auckland flat

Comedian Joel Hansby and his flatmates are homeless after a tree fell on their house. Photo / Nick Reed

A bunch of comedians have found themselves to be tenants of a tree house after an autumn storm over-delivered this week. this week's storm over-delivered.

The group of five have been homeless since they watched a huge heritage tree tumble towards them.

A night of weather mayhem blasted Auckland on Tuesday with winds gusting up to 213km/h at the Manukau Heads.

The wind tore roofs from houses and uprooted trees that came crashing down on over 100 power lines across the region. At its peak 180,000 homes were without power.

Joel Hansby, 24, was upstairs taking photos of the branches falling off a nearby tree with his flatmates when disaster struck.

"It was a huge crack then it started coming down.

"I tackled one of the guys out of the way, which he said wasn't necessary in retrospect.

"It must have hit a beam in the roof and stopped it coming into the room we were in. It just sat on the house."

The Mt Albert home has been damaged by this heritage tree falling over in Tuesday's storm. Photo / Supplied

The power cut out and the flatmates - Savanna Calton, Ray O'Leary, Ben MacGougan and Josh Davies - were plunged into darkness. They tried to call 111 but "it sounded like Auckland was in a bit of a hellhole", Hansby said.

It wasn't the first time the 120-year-old heritage tree had attracted attention, Hansby told the Herald.

"It was very big. We had a lot of people knock on our door telling us how beautiful they thought the tree was. Taking photos of it. People liked it ... I liked it until yesterday."

The fire service deemed the property unsafe when they visited in the morning. The landlord is unsure how long it will take to fix.

In the meantime the group have spread out around Auckland, sleeping on friends' couches and in spare rooms.

Hansby admitted living with comedians was pretty fun. The name of their flat Facebook group has already been changed to "the treehouse".

"But sometimes it's not serious enough. Especially when a tree is in your house it's probably time to be a bit more serious.

"The problem is there is going to be five of us trying to use it as material."

The comedians all moved from Wellington to Auckland last year.