You can smell it before you see it.
The mould and damp, spread throughout solo mother of two Kirsty Van Der Mee’s central Auckland rental apartment, has turned her home into what she claims is a “hotel of horrors”.
Now Van Der Mee, who shifted to the super city from Gisborne to pursue higher education three years ago, believes the spores in The Elliott Hotel apartment are making her and her whānau sick.
“It just smells toxic, this isn’t fresh air that I’m breathing.
“I’ve been in and out of the doctors like a mad person, I felt insane because I’ve gone to the doctor so many times. I thought I was going crazy because I was like, ‘why am I at the doctors all the time?’”
Two floors down, one of her neighbours said she too has battled mould and cockroaches, but it’s the fear of strangers wandering into the building that has kept her up at night.
“There’s just no security system at the door and we had a stranger come up recently to our front door, basically throw a rock at it because they were on some substances and, because our front door is glass, it shattered,” the second woman said.
And the apartments aren’t cheap.
She said her rent comes in at $850 a week for three rooms - two windowless. Van Der Mee pays $644 for two bedrooms.
Back inside Van Der Mee’s apartment mould coats areas in the living room and bathroom, parts of her floor are damp and she said bedbugs and cockroaches have made themselves at home.
While the hotel’s website said it offers “quality Auckland New Zealand apartments” in a “beautifully restored heritage building with a grand marble entrance, combining old world charm, with all the modern facilities”, she claims her experience has been a far cry from what is advertised.
The property manager and the company that owns the building were approached for comment several times but have not responded to repeated phone, text and email requests.
When the Herald went to the organisation’s office on Queen St a worker said they were not there and no one else would be available to speak.
Last year on her first night in her apartment, Van Der Mee said baby cockroaches started coming out of the carpet in droves.
“I was like, oh my God, what the hell.
“There were just hundreds of little baby cockroaches coming out everywhere, like under the carpet in my room, coming out of the cracks of the carpet coming out of the kitchen, the bathroom.”
Although she said this was addressed immediately and she was able to move out for two days while the bugs were exterminated, it didn’t end there.
She told the Herald she has since had issues with bed bugs, plumbing, an unexplained sulphur odour and elevators she fears could fail.
Van Der Mee said she and her daughter were once trapped in the building’s elevator when it became stuck between floors.
She claimed the property manager “laughed when I told her we were stuck in the elevator, and I had to call the fire brigade”.
“I was like, it’s not funny. My child... we thought we were going to die.
“The electrical doors on the floors do not always open, and we have had many false fire alarms go off in the night, which makes me feel extremely uneasy. I have had to plan an alternative escape route out the windows using knots and sheets because I need to know my children will survive if we cannot get out in the event of a fire. We are that petrified.”
But her biggest concern is the mould.
Nausea, skin and allergy issues have plagued her since moving in, and Van Der Mee said her breathing has also suffered.
“When I am feeling shortness of breath, it’s like I’m gonna suffocate and I’ve thought to call the ambulance or emergency people a couple of times because I thought I was actually dying from this reaction I was having and at the moment I’m just sick every day, I’m crook every day.”
She said her children are also suffering and her 4-and-a-half-year-old son has had repeated respiratory infections.
“He was away from daycare pretty much all winter... because he had respiratory problems.
“There’s always just like random spots, and if any bit of food splashes, or anything because my kids make a mess sometimes, there’ll be mould there the next day.”
When visited by the Herald this week significant patches of mould were visible in the living room and bathroom, and areas in the living room and main bedroom were damp.
Although spots within Van Der Mee’s reach have been cleaned, the mould has flourished in some corners on the high ceiling and beneath her bolted-down TV is coated in mould.
Often, she’s having to choose between aerating the home by opening the windows and trying to keep the heat in.
Her life, she said, has been ruined and she feels “trapped” because she can’t afford to move.
“I’m surprised I’m surviving.”
On Wednesday a member of the tenancy compliance and investigations team at MBIE confirmed to Van Der Mee in an email seen by the Herald they would be allocating a staff member to look into the issues she raised.
The second woman, who asked not to be named, told the Herald she is struggling with the living conditions.
“We’ve had cockroach issues because of the damp wood and they’re literally coming out from the bathroom sinks. So, I’ve had pest control in about three times as well just to try and get rid of them.”
After her entry was smashed, she said she was without a front door for about five weeks.
“They did nothing about it. Not even a wood panel up against it, they literally just taped it and put a curtain up.”
After more than a month of sleepless nights she said they finally replaced the door with clear glass, meaning those in the hallway could see directly into the apartment.
And like Van Der Mee, she’s too has trouble getting support when issues arise.
“They’re quick to ask if you’re one day late for rent or something, but anything to actually get any assistance around the apartment, they don’t want to know about it.”
Jonathan Wood, senior property lawyer with Court One, said while tenancies need to abide by the Healthy Home Standards, which became law in July 2019, two carve-outs may apply for existing homes and apartments when the regulations came into effect.
“The landlord only needs to make repairs or maintenance or bring it up to the standard if it’s reasonably practicable to do so. So if the cost, this is what it comes down to, of making the tenancy warm, dry, mould-free, et cetera, far outweighs the cost of the benefit of doing so, then they don’t have to.
The other carve-out that may apply, he said, is if the owner is not in control of the whole building so are limited in their responsibility to the elements that they can control.
That being said, he told the Herald the landlord also has an obligation to give a tenant quiet enjoyment.
“What that usually means is that the landlord just can’t turn up at any time and disturb the tenant in their tenancy. But it also has some provisions around the tenancy being secure and safe and private.”
Wood said there are self-help remedies tenants can try, for example taking a case to a tenancy tribunal, but these orders are typically publicly available for three years.
“Property managers usually search the database of decisions for prospective tenants’ names and use that as a way of vetting people who they see as quote-unquote a problem. So, there’s been an increase in the tribunal anonymising decisions especially when a tenant wins. But it’s not foolproof.”
Renters United’s president Geordie Rogers told the Herald research suggests the solution to damp housing was an adequately dry and healthy home, not opening windows.
“We have these healthy home standards that are supposed to keep our homes healthy. But unfortunately, it’s incredibly difficult to hold landlords accountable.”
Rogers said the cost of moving homes can stop renters from leaving housing situations like this.
“It is quite frustrating as a renter when someone suggests that you should just move out because I can guarantee you that the renter has considered moving out.
“Not only do you have to either hire a van or a company to move all of your stuff, but you also have to pay that rent in advance. You have to worry about whether your landlord will give back your bond. it is a massive investment of time and money to move properties.”
General practice representatives are in the final stages of negotiations with Health NZ.