The shocking state of one woman's home in Papamoa. Photos / Supplied
The shocking state of one woman's home in Papamoa. Photos / Supplied
More than a third of Bay of Plenty residents are living in homes with mould. Who is to blame? Shoddy tenants who don't clean or ventilate their homes? Or the landlords who refuse to listen to tenants' pleas for help? Kelly Makiha reports.
Western Bay tenants are scared to complainabout mould in their homes in case their landlords kick them out, while landlords say too many tenants are failing to clean and ventilate their mouldy homes.
A new survey shows more than a third of Bay of Plenty residents are living in homes with mould despite the introduction of housing reforms to improve the health of our houses.
Statistics NZ's latest wellbeing survey found the Bay of Plenty, including Rotorua, ranked the sixth-worst in the country with 36.3 per cent of homes having mould in them.
Across the country, about 16 per cent of Kiwis reported seeing mould bigger than an A4 sized paper in their homes – the effects of which can be devastating and even life-threatening.
University of Otago associate professor Nevil Pierse told the Bay of Plenty Times Kiwis made up about 28,000 visits to hospital each year as a result of living in cold and damp houses.
Children who went to hospital for these so-called housing-related illnesses returned for further treatment almost four times more often than those hospitalised for other conditions, he said.
And while the illnesses – including asthma, pneumonia and bronchiolitis – were preventable, many children were dying.
"In the next 15 years, those kids are 10 times more likely to die than kids hospitalised from other causes," Pierse said.
Mould flourishes in cold and damp homes, especially those poorly built, lacking insulation and adequate heating or with water leaking into or pooling around the house.
A Western Bay tenant spoken to by the Bay of Plenty Times, who wouldn't be named, said she feared telling her landlord because she knew her rent was relatively cheap and the housing crisis meant there were plenty of other people willing to put up with it for a roof over their heads.
The shocking state of one woman's home in Papamoa. Photos / Supplied
She said it was an older-style bach in Papamoa and it didn't have vents or extraction fans like newer homes. She said it was always difficult following property inspections when she was told to clean the mould.
"It just comes back. There's only so much you can do."
She said she was unable to put beds or other furniture up against walls because they quickly grew mould.
"Everything is just wet and rotting. If you complained they will say move and then you will end up having to rent somewhere for $600 a week."
Tauranga Property Investors Association president Julianne Tolley said most of the time properties were being poorly ventilated.
She said she went to a modern home this week and there were mould spores on the curtains simply because the home hadn't been aired adequately.
"I know in my own house in the ensuite there's moisture in there so I have to make sure there is good airflow."
Tolley said she still saw tenants drying laundry inside homes despite landlords saying they couldn't.
"Where is all that water going to go?"
The shocking state of one woman's home in Papamoa. Photos / Supplied
She said sometimes overseas tenants struggled more because they weren't aware New Zealand could be so humid.
"Obviously some houses have problems but a majority of mould being reported could be repaired with proper care and cleaning."
Tolley said the Government's Healthy Homes initiatives were great but they were going to take a few years before big changes were seen.
Nick Gregg from Sustainable Options, a social enterprise that works to improve living conditions by giving "energy audits" on Bay of Plenty homes, said there were certainly faults on both sides - tenants and landlords.
However, he said the main problem was that a majority of homes were not fit for New Zealand standards.
"Cold and mould don't discriminate. We live on an island that has relatively high humidity and we live in an environment where there is going to be mould ... We still build homes that don't handle our New Zealand living conditions well."
Gregg said homes being built now would be mouldy in the future.
"Our modern building code is still not providing homes that are warm, dry and healthy. We have a culture in New Zealand of poor housing conditions and landlords are just reflecting that. All of our homes are being impacted by mould, cold and damp living conditions and it's impacting our most vulnerable first."
The Government had introduced new healthy homes standards to make rentals warmer and drier, Housing and Urban Development's manager of housing quality Claire Leadbetter said.
All rental properties must now be insulated. By July 2021 they must also comply with the new healthy homes standards within 90 days of any new tenancy starting.
These set minimum standards for rentals in relation to heating, insulation, ventilation, draught stopping, and "moisture ingress".
Some home-owners could also secure financial grants to help buy heating and insulation for their family homes.
