The Dunedin North flat was so filthy the student and her parents had to spend hours cleaning it up on the day she moved in.
Photo: RNZ / Supplied
Sick, disgusting and harassed – that’s how a student has described her months living in a North Dunedin flat, constantly monitored by a landlord who owns multiple properties.
The student is still fighting to get her bond back and is warning others to check the landlord’s background before signing a lease.
It’s prompted calls for the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), Dunedin City Council, the student’s association and the University of Otago to put better protections in place.
*Anna visited the North Dunedin flat a few months before moving in. The place was a bit messy, but she put it down to it being a flat of all boys.
She and her two new flatmates signed the lease, paid the $2400 bond and began paying the weekly rent of $211 from January 2025, to secure it before they moved in the following month.
But when Anna and her mum opened the door on move-in day, their jaws dropped.
“There was just s*** everywhere, boxes everywhere, it was disgusting. I’ve never seen something so filthy.
“We just started bawling our eyes out and we were nearly throwing up too because of the smell.”
Anna said the three-bedroom flat was covered in grease, boxes of rubbish, broken glass and dirt was scattered across the floor.
Water was leaking through some of the windows, the gutters were choked with weeds, there were no smoke alarms, and leftover food was rotting in the pantry.
It was just a few weeks before lectures were due to start, so she and her and her parents spent the weekend scrubbing the flat down.
“Especially the kitchen and the toilets, there was still poo in the toilet.”
“It did not look like it had been cleaned in… I don’t even know how long.”
The Dunedin North flat was so filthy the student and her parents had to spend hours cleaning it up on the day she moved in.
Photo: RNZ / Supplied
During the five months or so she stayed there, Anna said she fell sick multiple times.
It impacted her studies, and she failed some of her university papers.
She was given a copy of the flat’s Healthy Homes Standards compliance, but she said it wasn’t worth the paper it was written on.
“A lot of air would come in, especially when it was windy, the door would rattle and you could feel the breeze coming through the door, through the whole house.”
The three flatmates contacted the landlord to fix the multitude of problems in the flat within the required 14 days.
She said that’s when the landlord became defensive. The landlord would show up to the flat with no warning and began sending the tenants aggressive emails, she said.
It wasn’t until the flatmates made a complaint to the Tenancy Tribunal, that they were able to get out of the lease in June.
But they still haven’t got their bonds back and haven’t been given a reason.
“The fact that she [the landlord] knows the process so well makes it unfair for uni students, because how do we know what the legal system is or how it all goes, we don’t know much.
“But since she has been there so many times, she knows every up and down, every corner to go through.”
The Dunedin North flat was so filthy the student and her parents had to spend hours cleaning it up on the day she moved in.
Photo: RNZ / Supplied
Otago University Students Association President Liam White said if landlords don’t look after their properties, the tenants won’t either.
“I’ve said multiple times to landlords if you give students a zoo, they’ll behave like an animal.
“If the landlord doesn’t respect the property, why should the tenant?”
Otago University Vice Chancellor Grant Robertson said many landlords in Dunedin were keeping their properties up to scratch, but there’s a number who weren’t.
“Landlords have got to expect that with the standards now as they are, that if they’re not meeting them there will be a consequence.
“What we also know is that there are some landlords, a small number, who own multiple properties, and I think that’s where a bit of that pressure might be useful.
“The work we do with The Property Investors Federation, there are some good landlords, there are some people working really hard, to make sure that the flats are good and they have an interest as much as we do in highlighting the bad landlords.”
The Dunedin North flat was so filthy the student and her parents had to spend hours cleaning it up on the day she moved in.
Photo: RNZ / Supplied
Grant Robertson said students, the Otago University Students Association, the Dunedin City Council, Otago University and MBIE need to work together to come up with a solution to the city’s housing woes.
“I feel like when I look at the history of this issue, individual groups or institutions have done something, but it hasn’t been as co-ordinated.
“While Dunedin is student central, but go to Christchurch, even Wellington, you’re going to see some similar issues.”
Checkpoint made multiple attempts to contact the landlord mentioned in this story. They disputed Anna’s claims but wouldn’t provide comment.
Several other of the landlord’s properties were currently management sites, to be rented out next year.
Brett Wilson from the Tenancy Services Tenancy Compliance and Investigations Team, which operates within MBIE, said he encouraged students to check Healthy Homes Standards compliance statements when visiting a property.
Wilson said after signing a lease, if there were issues with the property it was important to raise them as soon as possible.
For landlords, if they were getting a Healthy Homes inspection through a company, he encouraged them to research the company and its reviews.
He said there needed to be open communication between tenants and landlords, and proactive maintenance to ensure properties continued to meet the standards.
*The student’s name has been changed to protect their identity.
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