Mother of seven Samantha Tepana evicted from Kāinga Ora home after 45 complaints from neighbours

Along with roaming dogs, neighbours complained about noise and anti-social behaviour, including frequent parties, loud music, arguing and swearing, aggression towards neighbours, including property damage, trespass, and verbal threats.

A mother of seven who has been evicted from a Kāinga Ora rental after dozens of complaints from neighbours says she was “set up to fail” because she was put into a property in an area that is quiet and “not for Māori”.

The trouble started soon after Samantha Tepana moved into the Northland property, with Kāinga Ora telling the Tenancy Tribunal it had received more than 40 complaints from neighbours.

They reported noise and anti-social behaviour, including frequent parties, loud music, arguing and swearing, roaming dogs and aggression aimed at them, including property damage, trespass and verbal threats.

Kāinga Ora said while Tepana’s neighbours were willing to share contents of their communications with the tribunal, most were not willing to give evidence because of “security concerns”.

One neighbour, however, was willing to provide evidence of rubbish dumped on his property, trespass onto his property, and damage to his property when he appeared before tribunal adjudicator Nicholas Blake.

Kāinga Ora said it had issued six anti-social behaviour notices and three breach notices, while information from police showed officers were called to the property several times.

The Kaipara District Council had contacted Kāinga Ora with concerns because of “numerous complaints from different complainants” relating to “extreme noise on a weekly basis and two to three days at a time” and “barking dogs and wandering dogs”.

The tribunal heard that the council’s record of dog control and noise control complaints for the property and responses ran to 47 pages.

While Tepana didn’t attend the tribunal hearing, copies of emails between herself and Kāinga Ora were provided as evidence.

In one of the emails, Tepana said, “Kāinga Ora has set me up to fail, I am a mother with seven kids put into an environment where it’s [quiet] and not for Māori.

“We are a loud family and to put us smack bang in the middle of a quiet area with no privacy and close neighbours with [a] shared driveway [is] everything I didn’t ask for.”

Blake didn’t accept her explanation, saying in a recently released decision that if it was merely a matter of a large and loud family being in a quiet area, there would be no suggestion of terminating the tenancy.

“People in the community must tolerate some amount of noise from their neighbours. However, the evidence shows that the issues at . . . are massively, exponentially, beyond this.”

Blake was satisfied Tepana had caused and permitted an unreasonable interference with the peace, comfort and privacy of her neighbours.

He said the breaches were not capable of being remedied and Kāinga Ora had given Tepana every opportunity to address the problem.

While Kāinga Ora confirmed the situation had improved since it had filed an application with the tribunal in June, “that was too little and too late”.

The nature and extent of the breaches were such that it would be unreasonable to refuse the request for termination, given the frequency of the interferences with peace, comfort and privacy during a 12-month duration.

They included disruptive behaviour and the seriousness and extent of the incidents, in particular intentional property damage, threats to people and animals posed by wandering dogs, and allegations of threatening and intimidating behaviour.

The tenancy was terminated on July 16.

Al Williams is an Open Justice reporter for the New Zealand Herald, based in Christchurch. He has worked in daily and community titles in New Zealand and overseas for the past 16 years. Most recently he was editor of the Hauraki-Coromandel Post, based in Whangamatā. He was previously deputy editor of the Cook Islands News.