Queenstown rental crisis: Hospitality worker told his accommodation to be used as Airbnb instead

Hospitality workers are facing increasing accommodation shortages in Queenstown. Photo / Mike Scott

By RNZ

A Queenstown renter says he and his flatmates were given notice after raising concerns about a spare room being let on Airbnb.

The hospitality worker, who only wanted to be identified as Mitchell, said their landlord told them last week a spare room, in what he believed was a shared house, was going to be let on Airbnb with the first visitors arriving in just days.

After raising concerns they were given notice and told the whole house would be let via Airbnb, Mitchell said.

The resort town is in the grips of a rental crisis.

Mitchell arrived in Queenstown from Australia late last year to work in the hospitality industry.

He searched high and low for a home in the town for months before arriving, but had no success.

Once he arrived in Queenstown he did what he could - including living in hostels - until landing a place in January at what he believed was a shared house.

After being told the spare room was going to be let on Airbnb, he and the other flatmates raised their concerns.

“We basically said ‘Look, we’re not comfortable with this, especially because we don’t have any keys - none of the doors can lock’ ... and the owners pretty much came back to us and said ‘All right in that case we all want you out of the house in four weeks. We are going to Airbnb the whole thing’,” Mitchell said.

His story was symptomatic of the situation faced by many in the town.

Hundreds of homes were available for short-term letting on platforms like Airbnb, but finding a permanent place in an affordable rental was hard work for the workers who kept the town’s tourism and hospitality industries ticking over.

Now Mitchell and the rest of his flatmates face the daunting prospect of finding somewhere else to live.

“It is just a real kick in the face when you’re already down. I did a week sleeping on a few pillows in the storage room at work after arriving here because all the hostels were full.”

He wanted to be part of the solution to Queenstown’s worker shortage, which was especially prevalent in hospitality and tourism, but apart from his employer, he did not get the sense he was wanted in the town.

Many others felt the same and that reputation was spreading about Queenstown, Mitchell said.

“I already know people within my workplace, and I’ve heard of people in other workplaces, who have come here, worked for two or three months and then given up because they haven’t been able to get a place and they’ve just gone home.”

Citizens Advice Bureau national adviser Sacha Green said people should take their time to seek advice before signing any tenancy agreement.

The agreement signed by Mitchell raised some serious concerns for her, and it appeared to meet the legal definition of a boarding house tenancy, she said.

“Even though the agreement might say this only grants a licence to occupy and says the Residential Tenancies Act doesn’t apply - on the facts of it, the Residential Tenancies Act does in fact apply and this is a boarding house tenancy,” Green said.

Boarding house tenants still had many of the rights of those in a shared flatting situation.

“Any situation where you’ve got tenants raising an issue of concern and then immediately being given notice - even if the notice meets the lawful notice requirements for a boarding house tenancy - there’s still a question to be asked there about whether it was in retaliation for them making a complaint.”

Tenants also had the option of taking a landlord to the Tenancy Tribunal for any breaches of the Residential Tenancies Act.

RNZ was unable to directly contact the landlord.