An 82-year-old Mount Maunganui pensioner who goes to the swimming pool every morning and enjoys a beer or sherry before dinner is seeking a like-minded flatmate to share costs and for some company.
John McGill previously advertised in the newspaper for a flattie but said those who applied were not a good fit. But after reading in about a fellow Tauranga pensioner in her 70s with days left to find a new rental home, he felt compelled to try again.
“I have a spare room that no one is using.”
Sitting at the kitchen table in his modest unit, he has just returned from the supermarket with a fish and some fresh mussels. Three fat seagulls are on the lawn waiting eagerly for him to gut and fillet his dinner.
“I do feed the birds,” he says. “Nothing goes to waste in this house.”
The lifetime member of the Coastguard spent a lot of his younger days working on launches in the Tauranga Harbour and skippering passenger boats to take people fishing.
“So I’m pretty easygoing,” he said when asked what he would be like to live with.
His hobbies include keeping fit and healthy. Every day at 6am he goes to the Baywave Aquatic & Leisure Centre to walk in the pool for one hour and socialise with other men around his age.
“I walk up and down and up and down. I haven’t been there for two days so they will be ringing me up soon to see where I’ve been. Sometimes we are there waiting at the door before it even opens.”
McGill also likes driving and had been to Hamilton the day before his interview with the Bay of Plenty Times.
He never misses British trivia gameshow The Chase on TV and at 4.45pm he would enjoy either one stubbie of dark beer in summer or a sherry in winter. And he likes to be in bed at about 8pm.
As a rule, his housework “got done when I do it,” but because “I live on my own it doesn’t get very messed up”.
His new flatmate would get the larger bedroom. He paid about $530 a week in rent for the two-bedroom unit close to Bayfair Shopping Centre.
It would be good “to have some company, especially in winter” and he wasn’t opposed to someone who was a bit “younger than myself but not a young person”.
Appealing publicly for a flatmate would not escape the notice of those close to him.
“My mates down at the pools are going to give me bloody heaps.”
Age Concern Tauranga general manager Tanya Smith said the housing crisis was escalating and sharing your home with a like-minded person was one positive solution.
“I think it is fabulous. He (John) is being savvy … and looking outside the box. It’s exploring the possibilities of having a companion to have a meal with and a conversation.”
Everyone needed to have a safe place to call home.
“This is what we want to hear and this is what we want to see. Those supporting and uplifting each other in our community. It is a great way of doing something out of the norm.”
“Sharing space and creating new friendships.”
Last week Minister for Seniors Casey Costello told the Bay of Plenty Times providing living options for people as they aged was a key challenge she wanted to address.
“I mean everything from people being able to stay in their existing family home right through to there being suitable places for older New Zealanders to live and receive health or dementia care.”
At the same time, Tauranga gerontologist Carole Gordon said vulnerable elders were stressed due to housing policy “negligence”.
“We have an elder housing care crisis, there is no solution in sight.
“It’s a disgrace.”
People were living longer which drove the need to design rental homes for elders, she said.
Her research found rentals had become unaffordable “forcing more people including elders to live under bushes, in tents, toilets, cars garages or couch surf”, according to a paper she prepared for a healthy ageing forum.
A public Facebook group recently set up to help over-65s in Tauranga find flatting, boarding and rental options has more than 160 members.
Recent posts include those wanting live-in companions, mature flatmates and people with units or bedsits for rent. Others were accommodation seekers.
Carmen Hall is a news director for the Bay of Plenty Times and Rotorua Daily Post, covering business and general news. She has been a Voyager Media Awards winner and a journalist for 25 years.