Reporter Rachel Maher lays bare the trials and tribulations of living in 10 homes across Tāmaki Makaurau in five years.
BANG!
I sat bolt upright from my sleep on the mattress that lay on the floor.
Boxes were strewn around my room, and a suitcase at the end of it held my clothes.
Racing downstairs, I found my flatmates crowding around a girl whose leg had plummeted through our dining room floor. The tiles had finally given way to the rotten wood below in our damp mansion in one of Auckland’s flashest suburbs.
I wish I could say my first thought was, ‘Is she okay? Is she injured?’
But it wasn’t.
Instead, all I could think was, ‘Do I have to move again?’.
She was not injured, but I did have to move.
I moved to Auckland in February 2019 from Whangārei to embark on my journey to becoming a journalist.
Before that, I had lived in the same house for 18 years, only moving bedrooms once, and was desperate for a change of scenery.
Since then, I have lived in 10 different flats from West Auckland to East and everywhere in between.
From big houses in ritzy neighbourhoods and newly built townhouses to mouldy, damp, grim villas riddled with mice that chewed at my clothes.
Moving is taxing - not just on the wallet but also on your mental health. Never being able to put down roots gets inside your head.
So for those in the same situation, I am telling this cautionary tale of my turbulent journey through Auckland’s rental market.
The good, the bad, the ugly and all the mould in between.
My landing pad in Auckland was the WSA student accommodation block on Mount St in the heart of Auckland’s CBD.
Having grown up on the outskirts of Whangārei, surrounded by the harbour and farms, the bustling city was a welcome change to set me up for adulthood.
The AUT dorms were not set up like typical dorms, more like small flats. A tiny apartment, with a kitchenette and five bedrooms down a long, narrow hallway.
The $18,720 got me a king single bed, a desk, a chair and a wardrobe. I was insulated from the struggles of affording my power and water bills as that was all covered in the cost, and threw all cares of short showers and guarding light switches to the wind.
Due to a paperwork error, I was planted with four boys. Three engineering hopefuls and a maths whiz.
After a year of countless noise complaints, cheap bottles of vodka and a few run-ins with security after the boys tried to hotwire the Lime scooters for personal use, my first year was up.
My second home was offered to a group of us Whangārei ex-pats through a lucrative deal.
Most of them were starting an apprenticeship with a building company whose project the next year was on a quarter-acre section that had a run-down home on it set to be demolished.
No rental agreements, and no bond to pay, the four-bedroom house was offered to us for dirt cheap.
The day we moved in was March 24, when we huddled around my phone among moving boxes to watch Jacinda Ardern say we would have to remain in the falling-down home for an unknown amount of time.
I quickly escaped back to Whangārei to ride out the lockdowns before I once again became the only girl in a flat falling apart at the seams, filled with tradies and students.
The boys quickly decorated the walls with holes, which I then framed and added captions to, such as “short man syndrome”.
One day, the boys banded together to throw the oven onto the roof of the shed. I quickly became an expert at using an electric frypan and microwave for every meal.
There are plenty more stories to be told about this place, like when I adopted a cat after a lady handed it to me on our doorstep, but the horrors of being a 19-year-old living with a terrible boyfriend far outweighed any of the good.
The house was damp, cold, mouldy and fuelled by testosterone.
The real kicker was that it was never torn down. Someone paid to have that hole-filled house transported to a new section. I hope they at least found my artwork funny.
After going back to Whangārei for the summer to save some money, my final year of university called for a more mature setting, or so I thought.
After a month of searching, I finally settled at a Sandringham villa, with all its original details.
“It’s got … character,” my dad said as he stared at the tiny kitchen and bathroom, run-down hardwood floors and mouldy roof.
My room had a loft which I quickly stuck my bed on, pretending I was in some hip New York apartment.
The real stand-out in this place were the creatures here long before me.
One fateful day while recovering from surgery, I awoke with a scream after seeing a cockroach the size of my palm sitting on the pillow next to me.
My food was often ruined with rat bites, no matter how many traps were set. The sound of them in the walls sent me to sleep each night.
I lasted a surprising seven months in that home before it all became a bit much - waking up with a mouse in my bed.
I moved with a flatmate from Sandringham into a home I knew was at least half-decent. My friends had been there a year and were looking for someone to take over the lease while they gallivanted off to Europe.
Finally, a house with nothing to write about. It was warm and the water pressure in the shower was the stuff of legend.
But at that point, moving was becoming a new normal. Staying in one place for more than a year? Unheard of. I was too restless and naive. So, so naive.
A good friend of mine and her partner were getting on the property ladder with a two-bedroom home in Ellerslie.
We had lived together for two years with no issues so they asked me to move in and help pay their mortgage.
The idea was great in theory: Why pay my rent to some Auckland billionaire with multiple properties when I can help out a friend?
The lack of a tenancy agreement did not bother me; these were my friends, after all.
I finally felt at home there; the two cats quickly became the object of all my attention. We did flat outings, dinners and even an overseas holiday. A true flat family.
But my newfound bliss only lasted 10 short months before they decided to renovate the place. The lack of a tenancy agreement came back to bite when I was told I had 10 days until I was homeless.
I found a new flat on the ninth day. From then on, the Auckland rental market never felt like a meeting of equals.
Mould covered the clothes, shoes and bags in my wardrobe. I had a persistent cough and the walls dripped with condensation every morning.
It was nestled amid million-dollar mansions but I doubt this place would have ever passed a Healthy Homes test. That didn’t concern me though; I had a roof over my head and decent flatmates.
As a bonus, there was a noticeable absence of mice and bugs.
Eventually the months of ignoring the cracking tiles and the sound of three dehumidifiers blasting at once caught up to us when a friend of a flatmate fell through the rotted floor.
Pleas to the landlord fell on deaf ears until we had a builder come in and screw a piece of plywood over the hole.
“Put something heavy on top of it to keep the wind out,” he said with pity. We knew the thin layer of wood was not a short-term plan.
It took three weeks of begging the landlord to allow us to break the tenancy agreement to get out.
A co-worker took pity on my misfortune after my flatting stories often became a hot topic of discussion during lunch breaks.
She offered me a room in her Grey Lynn home. A tiny room that barely fit all my belongings, but at that point I only had a few. Heavy furniture was quickly disposed of, too much hassle for the inevitable move.
My wardrobe was cut down to what I could fit into a suitcase, easier to move it that way. It was like my life became one big lead-up to the next move.
Even a bed base was too much work; I slept with a mattress on the floor for two years.
“It’s very Japanese,” I would say with a laugh to people rightfully concerned about mould forming.
I was so used to being transient that it became second nature. I was a paper bag blowing in the treacherous winds of the rental market.
The flatmates in this home were superb, but that and the handy location were the only good qualities.
Mice hid under the floorboards and behind our kitchen cupboards. They gnawed at the pipes, causing a leak in the floorboards.
I got another three-month stint in this flat before everyone decided to move out.
By this time I was officially part of the workforce and with a little bit more income, it was time for a bit of luxury.
I moved with the same co-worker into a four-bedroom townhouse in Avondale.
A new build, you could practically smell the sawdust when you walked through the door. A central vacuum, a modern kitchen and my own en suite.
Friends and family gasped when they visited, remembering the rats and cockroaches of homes before.
I gloated about my rain shower and the heated floors of my en suite to distract myself from the fact I could not make the place my home.
Whether it was an imposter-like syndrome that made me feel I did not deserve a home as nice as this one or the constant fear of moving, I could not settle.
Even the bed base I finally bought could not help me feel more grounded. Nothing felt permanent, but I suppose nothing is in the Auckland rental market.
As they usually are, my fears of another move came true seven months later when the owner decided to rent out the rooms to his friends instead.
I couldn’t even bring myself to care; most of my things were still in boxes anyway.
I was back on “Flatmates Wanted” trawling through ads.
At the same time, my first proper adult relationship was falling apart, so for the first time since I moved to Auckland, the change of scenery was welcomed.
The pre-renting checks became a well-rehearsed dance.
Always look in the corner of the wardrobe for mould, turn on the shower to check the water pressure and glance in the recycling bin to see if they are lying about “only having a few drinks after work, absolutely not a party flat”.
Upon meeting the flatmates in one ad, I knew my next home was with them. I told them I wanted the room on the drive back to my old home and they accepted.
They were sympathetic to my struggles of the past and routinely dismissed my constant fear that I would be forced to move again.
I tried to shake my poor luck but it was not to be. The landlord decided to sell up just four months later.
I was determined to make this my last move. I had made a good impression on my flat family and we all found a new place together.
I moved into our five-bedroom Greenlane paradise a little over three months ago.
With a big kitchen, two living rooms, a home office and cheap rent, this place is a flatter’s dream.
For the first time in two years, I unpacked all of my belongings just a day after moving in. I have a bed base and even a picture hanging on the wall.
This is the best place yet. But is it permanent? Only time will tell.
Although my experience may be extreme, it could become the new reality for Auckland renters.
Angela Maynard of the Tenants Protection Association said they were preparing for a busy 2025 when 90-day “no-cause” terminations are reinstated.
This means landlords will be able to get rid of tenants without giving a reason.
Maynard said the association was nervous about the strain this could place on the rental market.
“It’s an appalling step backwards … it takes away all the security of a tenancy.”
She said there was a six-month waiting list to see the Tenancy Tribunal, which was mostly clogged by renters trying to get out of fixed-term leases after job loss.
So, if you end up in the same boat as me, here are a few tips.
And finally, take time picking out your flatmates. Even a house falling apart at the seams can be made a home with the right people.
Rachel Maher is a multimedia journalist for the New Zealand Herald, focusing on crime and breaking news.
Author Oliver Burkeman wants people to look at a different kind of self-help.