The landlord detailed the anti-social behaviour as the woman having her visitors park inside the village grounds and regularly leave late at night, or in the early hours of the morning, disturbing the sleep and quiet enjoyment of neighbouring units within the village which created a nuisance.
However, she hit back claiming she had to keep a blanket over her window and couldn’t enjoy natural light because the grumbling neighbour had a camera pointed at her unit and monitored her movements.
The Tribunal has the power to terminate someone’s tenancy if the landlord has given them a correctly written notice of antisocial behaviour three times within a 90-day period.
Three notices for anti-social behaviour were issued to the woman this year on January 6, January 24 and March 9. The first alleged the actions took place between 4am and 5am on December 23, 2022, but specifically noted the 90-day period began on January 9, 2023, so wasn’t valid to be included.
Emails were provided to the tribunal by the landlord, who confirmed they were mainly from the same neighbour at the complex, and her complaints centred around cars arriving and leaving late at night, making noise and waking her up.
A friend, the same person with the allegedly noisy car, represented the woman at the tribunal for various reasons, including her suffering from high anxiety. He said she had complained about the camera as it breached her quiet enjoyment of the property but she was advised by the landlord nothing could be done.
It felt like a borderline harassment situation, he stated, with the landlord only acting on the neighbour’s complaints. He added his friend felt like the neighbour was illegally monitoring her unit.
The man admitted owning a car with a noisy exhaust prior to Christmas 2022 but said he was conscious of the problems it was causing his friend and sold it.
Since then he said he only had cars with factory-provided quiet exhausts and had been extremely careful to not idle his car in the village, not make any car noise, other than starting it and leaving the property immediately, as quietly as possible. He added that while he liked cars he could hardly be considered a ‘boy racer’, especially given he was in his mid-40s.
During his visits, he usually arrived between 7.30-8pm and left around 11.30pm, but did admit to leaving a couple of times after 11.30pm.
He used the tenant’s car park when visiting because he carried expensive computer equipment in his car, for business, and didn’t want to leave it parked on the street.
During one visit he alleged the unhappy neighbour had deliberately moved road cones so he would have to park right outside her unit, which he and his friend believed was for the purpose of closely monitoring him.
A further allegation the woman smoked marijuana in her unit, made by the bristly neighbour’s son, was also denied and the son was invited inside to see if he could smell the drug but apparently, he couldn’t.
The landlord’s representative agreed significant steps had been taken to mitigate noise at night.
Tribunal adjudicator Christian Price said an order terminating the tenancy could only be made if satisfied on three separate occasions within a 90-day period the tenant, or a person in the premises with the tenant’s permission, engaged in anti-social behaviour in connection with the tenancy.
Written notice containing specific details about the allegations including the specific behaviour, date, time and location as well as their right to challenge the claims, needed to be provided by the landlord.
Price ruled only two of the notices issued were valid and both fell short of meeting the required standard for details, so he dismissed the landlord’s application for termination on the grounds of anti-social behaviour.
Leighton Keith joined NZME as an Open Justice reporter based in Whanganui in 2022. He’s been a journalist for 20 years covering a variety of topics and rounds.
