'Rampaging at night': Remuera tenant wins $2500 from landlord because of wild neighbour

A landlord has had to pay compensation after failing to take all steps to protect her tenant's peace from a neighbour accused of being a drug addict. Photo / File

An Auckland tenant has won $2500 compensation after her landlord didn't do enough to evict a second tenant who was "rampaging around at night, causing a disturbance".

According to a recently published Tenancy Tribunal decision, Anne-Michelle Serage made repeated complaints about the man living in the Remuera unit below her, who was also a tenant of her landlord.

She claimed her bathroom was left reeking of dope because the man was smoking drugs inside his unit downstairs.

The man also regularly caused late night disturbances, including one occasion when he passed out in his ute, she said.

Later, Serage contacted her landlord again to say her neighbour was loading his car in the small hours of the night while "clearly high on meth".

Her neighbour was "irrational and thought what he was doing was fine", Serage said.

She claimed the man had "been on P for months" and this made her feel unsafe.

The owner of the two rentals, Noor Keary, had earlier inspected the man's unit and found the apartment in generally good condition with no smell of drugs.

However, when another neighbour of the two units contacted Keary about the man loading his ute late at night and clearly being on drugs, she decided to enlist the help of a property manager.

But Keary didn't tell the property manager about the concerns with the man's drug use.

The Tenancy Tribunal adjudicator found that by receiving this information but then not passing it on to the property manager, Keary failed "to take all reasonable steps" to ensure the man did not interfere with Serage's peace, comfort and privacy.

This meant the landlord effectively "permitted an ongoing breach of Ms Serage's quiet enjoyment".

The adjudicator subsequently awarded Serage $2500 in compensation.

However, Serage had to pay $770 of that back to Keary for cleaning and repairs after she was later booted from the rental because her partner had also got into a new dispute with the new tenant downstairs that replaced the last one.

"The altercation between Ms Serage's partner and the new downstairs tenant is substantiated by a police report, which noted that there had been a complaint of assault following a parking dispute," the adjudicator said.

In a separate decision about a rental in Levin, north of Wellington, tenant Daeshanah-Lee Stevens was booted from home for allowing an unlawful act to take place.

Her troubles started when a man variously described as her partner, uncle and advocate was home at her rental when an inspection took place but she was not.

Property manager Lisa Berryman said the man told them he was Stevens' uncle and took them through the property.

But in the garage, Berryman spotted a white powdery substance on a table
with a "tinny" wrapper next to it.

"She told him it looked like drugs and he agreed it was. He scraped off the powder and put that and the tinfoil in his pocket, saying he would have it tested," the Tenancy Tribunal adjudicator said.

When Berryman later phoned up Stevens to discuss what had happened, Stevens said the man was her "advocate who assisted her in dealing with her tenancy" and was at the property with her permission.

She then called the police who executed a search warrant and gave a formal warning for possession of utensils for cannabis and methamphetamine.

The adjudicator subsequently granted permission to the property managers to end Stevens' tenancy.

In a third recently published Tenancy Tribunal decision, Palmerston North tenant Bridgette O'Brien was ordered to pay more than $3000 to the landlord for a variety of cleaning and rubbish removal costs.

This included $514 to pay for drainage clearing after a photo "showed huge amounts of dog faeces and toilet paper" down a drain on the property.

While the tenant was not allowed to keep a dog, the landlord testified they had one chained up at the property anyway.

The adjudicator ruled the tenant should pay for the drain cleaning because the only way the dog droppings could have gotten down the drain was if it had been dumped there.