Meth contamination under the spotlight

Jayne Owen has had to wait more than two weeks to move into her new house in Waipukurau while it was cleaned after testing positive for meth contamination. Photo/Duncan Brown

Property managers are eagerly awaiting the outcome of the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill (No.2) to give some clarity around dealing with methamphetamine contaminated rental properties in order to protect landlords and tenants.

Building and Construction Minister Nick Smith introduced the bill to Parliament on Tuesday this week and said it would help ensure tenancy laws better dealt with methamphetamine contamination, liability for careless damage and the tenancy of unsuitable properties.

Oxygen Property Management has offices in Hawke's Bay, and Wellington-based general manager Christian Casbolt said the whole area of reducing methamphetamine risk, both for landlords and tenants, was a difficult one.

"We are waiting for a few things to happen, and looking at getting owners on board for compulsory pre and post-tenancy meth testing, but we need to be careful.

"We intend to roll out a pretty firm policy on methamphetamine as soon as we get a good indication from the Government of what we are dealing with."

He said Oxygen had a general clause in tenancy agreements that a property may be tested if drug manufacture or use was suspected.

"We ask tenants to agree to that happening when they take on a lease - it's not obligatory at this point but that may change to mandatory pre and post-tenancy testing.

"It's a moving feast - once we get some clarity then we will make some decisions."

He noted that it was getting increasingly expensive for property owners who had residential tenancies, with changes made last year requiring landlords to install smoke alarms and insulation.

Adding methamphetamine into the equation would increase such costs further and it would be a matter of balancing what was best for property owners as well as being mindful of tenants' health.

Harcourts Real Estate Waipukurau co-owner Michael Harding said the Government needed to put some hard and fast rules and regulations in place.

He said his company had a management contract where the house owner could specify if they wanted random methamphetamine checks if it was suspected tenants were involved in drugs.

"If the building owner wants it done we put that in the tenancy agreement and quite a large proportion are taking up that option."

He said the problem was growing in Central Hawke's Bay as well as around the country and you couldn't identify any one bracket of people that may be involved in such activity.

In an ideal world, he said it would be good best practice to have a house tested every time a tenant moved, but at the moment all people had to go on were guidelines.

"I would like to see the Government taking the lead and putting in regulations - so far we have only ever had guidelines that are open to interpretation.

"If a regulated testing regime were in place for pre and post-tenancy I think you would find some of the problem would go away as people would smoke outside the property."

Waipawa resident Jayne Owen recently bought a new house in Waipukurau and it being contaminated with methamphetamine was something she had not considered.

The house had been tenanted and it was another potential buyer who asked for the property to be tested, with the results coming back positive.

Initial tests indicated the dining room, laundry, bathroom and a bedroom were over the safe limit, and subsequently more rigorous laboratory testing was carried out.

The results showed that only the dining room had to be cleaned.

She had moved into temporary accommodation for four weeks while that was carried out.

She felt lucky the problem was not worse, but the house had to be cleaned or she would not have been able to get a mortgage or insurance.

"I had not thought about it - I had seen stories about it in the newspapers - I felt sorry for the owner who had to pay for the testing and cleaning to be done.

"It set us back a few weeks from moving in but I was not willing to do that until I was sure it was clean."