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Home / New Zealand

Mother: Mouldy state house 'killing my children'

By Jimmy Ellingham and Nikki Papatsoumas
NZME.·
21 Aug, 2015 01:23 AM4 mins to read

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An Auckland woman says her son's medical woes were caused my mould in their state house. Photo / iStock

An Auckland woman says her son's medical woes were caused my mould in their state house. Photo / iStock

An Auckland mother says her youngest son's medical woes are caused by mould at the state house she and her family lives in.

Mother-of-two Te Ao Marama Wensor's youngest son, Iriah, 7, suffered from strokes and was now in hospital, she told Newstalk ZB.

She had been told by specialists that Iriah had holes in his lungs, and an enlarged heart, all as a result of the mould at her Glen Innes home, she said.

She was now worried she would wake up one day and her son would not "be there anymore", she said.

Earlier today Ms Wensor told Radio New Zealand there were holes in a wall of the bedroom shared by her two sons.

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"All the mould from the bathroom is just coming through to the walls. Because the water's coming straight down from the inside of the wall, coming down to the bottom, and it's just rotted all the wood on the side of it."

Last year one of her sons fell against the wall and went straight through it, she told Radio New Zealand.

Mrs Wensor said she had now temporarily moved into her cousin's house while she continued to wait for a Housing New Zealand transfer.

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However, Housing New Zealand said it had offered a motel room to Ms Wensor and her two sons which would be paid for by the Government agency.

In a written response, a Housing New Zealand spokeswoman told NewstalkZB it did not believe its tenants should have to live in any environment that may jeopardise their health.

On June 4, Housing New Zealand was informed by a community based group that Ms Wensor was concerned about her family's health, due to mould, she said.

"That same day we contacted Ms Wensor and visited her on June 5 to inspect the condition of her property.

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"Through this, we identified the need for a number of maintenance jobs, including repairing a wet wall leak causing the mould."

Housing New Zealand had since completed a number of repairs, and had booked in others for fixing, she said.

As Ms Wensor still wished to move to a new home, Housing New Zealand had also been working with Ms Wensor to find a new three or four-bedroom home in the specific suburbs she had requested, the spokeswoman said.

"However, these areas are in very high demand. We simply do not have the availability of vacant houses to be able just to transfer a family from one home to another. We will continue to work with Ms Wensor to find a solution."

In the meantime, Housing New Zealand had offered temporary motel accommodation to Ms Wensor, and her family, she said.The cost would be covered by Housing New Zealand.

Island Child Charitable Trust Manager Danielle Bergin told Newstalk ZB the Government had not done enough.

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"We have an issue. We need to, together as a nation, work out how we are going to resolve it. Now, we've got elected representatives who would not live in these houses themselves and would not put their children in peril."

Labour's housing spokesman Phil Twyford said it "beggers belief" a new home could not be found for the Wensors and called for Housing New Zealand to "immediately and permanently" find the family a warm, dry house.

"Te Ao Marama Wensor and community workers assisting her have been asking Housing NZ to move them for several months," Mr Twyford said.

Housing New Zealand should have moved the family as soon as they were told of the boy's health problems, he said.

"It is not good enough that after months of asking, nothing has been done.

"Housing NZ, which has 68,000 state houses nationally and has a balance sheet of $18 billion, has 2000 empty state houses around the country. It has 2800 state houses in the family's neighbourhood alone."

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The Green Party has also come out swinging about the issue.

Greens co-leader Metiria Turei said the lack of minimum standards for rental homes was making children sick.

"Te Ao Marama Wensor and her family should never have been expected to live in a house that's infested with pink and black mould - no New Zealand family should be."

It was a situation a building warrant of fitness system would avoid, she said.

"By refusing to bring in minimum standards for warmth, dryness and safety in rental properties, Bill English and Paula Bennett are saying that these kinds of houses are okay by them and okay by this Government.

"That is absolutely shameful in 21st-century New Zealand. Ms Wensor's house is clearly not fit to be lived in."

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