Odorous Chinese restaurant leaves tenants with bitter taste

Two Auckland tenants aren't likely to be ordering Chinese take out anytime soon after the smell of a nearby restaurant filled their apartment. Photo / 123RF

Two Auckland inner-city tenants have been left with a bitter taste after the smell from a nearby Chinese restaurant filled their studio apartment.

The odorous take-out was located across a courtyard, no more than 3m from tenants Jihan Kim and Jiye Min's groundfloor apartment in Lorne St.

The issue for the tenants was that some of their windows couldn't be closed.

They told a recent Tenancy Tribunal hearing that with the horizontal slat windows permanently open, there was no way to shut out the smells emanating from the bowels of the restaurant's kitchen.

The sounds and cigarette smoke from customers sitting in the courtyard also filled the apartment.

"The tenant further claims that when it rained the rain came through the windows," the adjudicator said.

This winter, cold weather also added at least $50 per month to their electricity bills, the tenants claimed.

Kim and Min said they subsequently made repeated complaints to landlord Sole Agents Ltd.

A repairman eventually came "but his only solution was to permanently close the windows by nailing them shut", the adjudicator said.

"The tenant did not want this, as those windows are the only ones that the tenant could leave open during the day to ventilate the property."

The adjudicator called the handyman's unimaginative solution "inadequate".

"The tenant was quite right to refuse this remedy," they said.

The adjudicator also found that despite complaints from Kim and Min, the landlord took three months to begin investigating a solution to fix the windows.

"Having heard the evidence, my feeling is that had the tenant not brought this matter to the attention of the tribunal then the landlord would not have investigated the windows any further," they said.

One of the tenants told the tribunal the malodorous problems had led them to book counselling.

"I am experiencing anxiety issues at home and excessive stress even at the thought of any problems at home," he said.

The adjudicator consequently awarded Kim and Min $460 compensation for the landlord's failure to maintain the windows and also granted them permission to end their fixed tenancy earlier.

"The tenant would suffer severe hardship if the term of the tenancy were not reduced," the adjudicator said.

"He would have to continue to live in a property where there is continuous noise, smell and cold air from the windows being permanently open, he would suffer anxiety and stress."