abandoned home on Kabul Street in Khandallah had been decaying<\/a> for years, bringing a strong smell to the area.<\/p>\nOne neighbour Paul Ash said it was attracting crime and had become almost “an industrial-sized puffball of mould spores”.<\/p>\n
The owner of the home was contacted by RNZ and acknowledged it had become an eyesore and confirmed demolition would start about 17 September.<\/p>\n
Nearly two weeks on, the owner seemed to have stuck to his word with the house having had some windows removed, a wall taken away and large gates in front of it warning it was a construction site.<\/p>\n
![\"Abandoned](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/4K0XKUB_250917_Khandallah_Mouldy_demo_2_jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\nWindows have now been taken out of the house.
\nPhoto: RNZ \/ Samuel Rillstone\n<\/p>\n
A homeowner on the street, Jenny, said people on the street would be relieved something was going to happen to the building.<\/p>\n
“It has been in a very dilapidated state for a very long time and it needs to be pulled down because it seems like the only option.”<\/p>\n
Fellow neighbour Pat Glasgow had lived on the street for the past 19 years.<\/p>\n
Glasgow said for the past year the smell the house had created was “pretty awful”.<\/p>\n
“It must be really damp and wet inside.”<\/p>\n
![\"Abandoned](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/4K0XKUY_250917_Khandallah_Mouldy_demo_1_jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\nThe house had not been lived in for some time.
\nPhoto: RNZ \/ Samuel Rillstone\n<\/p>\n
She said that the abandoned home had let the street down.<\/p>\n
“We’ll be quite happy I think to see it down.”<\/p>\n
The owner of the home earlier acknowledged the impact the house had on the street.<\/p>\n
“The neighbours have been very patient over the years,” he said.<\/p>\n
Wellington City Council said because the home was vacant and not an immediate risk to life it could not require the home’s owner to knock it down.<\/p>\n
Its senior health advisors had assessed it several times – with the latest being in June – and determined it was not safe to live in.<\/p>\n
Police advised the abandoned home’s owner it may pose a structural, health and safety risk, it attracted criminal activity and was an opportunity for squatters.<\/p>\n
Sign up for Ng\u0101 Pitopito K\u014drero<\/a>, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gates have gone up in front of the decaying house. Photo: RNZ \/ Samuel Rillstone Steel gates, warning…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":32485,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[48,47,42,43,49,46,44,45,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-32484","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-audio","9":"tag-current-affairs","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-podcasts","13":"tag-public-radio","14":"tag-radio-new-zealand","15":"tag-rnz","16":"tag-top-news","17":"tag-top-stories","18":"tag-topnews","19":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32484\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}