Loafers Lodge fire residents to recover some belongings after legal action

Former Loafers Lodge residents have been told they can salvage some of their belongings from the fire-damaged, saturated, mouldy building they used to call home.

“It’s probably the best that we can hope for,” one tenant said.

When a fire ripped through the Wellington building seven weeks ago, killing five men, many tenants fled with only the clothes on their backs. Precious personal belongings like family photos, letters and jewellery, remain in the building.

Residents had been told by the Loafers Lodge property manager, via a text message, their belongings would have to be thrown in the bin.

They engaged lawyers who filed High Court injunction proceedings to protect their belongings and prevent the hostel from being demolished. The parties reached an agreement that residents could engage their own independent experts to see if anything could be returned to tenants.

This afternoon Community Law senior lawyer Oscar Upperton said an expert structural engineer and asbestos assessor have now inspected the lodge.

“They found that there is widespread asbestos contamination in the building. Extensive water damage is also an obstacle to recovering belongings. However, hard items can be recovered for decontamination.”

This includes items like jewellery, glass, metal items, varnished wooden items, cameras, crockery, hard drives and bikes.

Soft or porous items like clothing, bedding and paper cannot be recovered because they cannot be decontaminated, Upperton said.

Some electronic items like computers might prove challenging, but data may be able to be recovered.

“The tenants of Loafers Lodge have gone through an unimaginably awful experience and lost their housing overnight on 16 May. It is doubly hard to learn now that some belongings, including truly precious items such as letters and photographs, cannot be recovered,” Upperton said.

“Community Law is relieved that at least some of the belongings can be recovered.”

Loafers Lodge company director Gregory Mein said on Thursday afternoon he had not been made aware of the new findings and did not wish to comment until he was across them.

He has previously described contamination in the building as “unbelievable” and had been told by other specialists it was unlikely belongings could be salvaged.

“The fire has burned out the whole mezzanine level and this has imploded into that [below] floor area. So a lot of those rooms are just completely gone, they don’t exist anymore,” Mein said last month.

“Underneath that, there are two levels... they pumped that much water through that building, and with the police and fire service trudging through there, the cross-contamination is just unbelievable to see and hence there’s mould because the stuff is wet all the time.”

A former Loafers Lodge resident, who did not want to be named, said being able to recover some belongings was the best possible result they could reasonably expect.

He was particularly keen to recover $1000 worth of tools he kept in his room and electronics like computer equipment.

Like many tenants, he left his wallet on his desk when he evacuated the building during the fire.

While he wasn’t currently driving, he wanted to get his licence back rather than having to pay for a new one.

Irreplaceable paperwork was also extremely important to people including written whakapapa and personal diaries, he said.

“I have school exercise books, notebooks, scrapbooks, pads of paper, which contain all of my writing for the last two years that I’ve been at Loafers Lodge.”

He hoped the most important pages could be copied and the originals discarded if necessary.

The man said he has a history of mild mental health issues and has been struggling for a long time.

“I’m managing at the moment but I’m sort of right on the edge and with the general stress of the last six weeks, I am really finding it hard. Thankfully I’m getting good support.”

A 48-year-old man has been charged with two counts of arson and five counts of murder. He has been granted interim name impression and is remanded in custody until his next court appearance.

Georgina Campbell is a Wellington-based reporter who has a particular interest in local government, transport, and seismic issues. She joined the Herald in 2019 after working as a broadcast journalist.