KEY POINTS:
Going, going - but still not gone. The state housing tenants who have made life a misery for neighbours in an Auckland street have dodged eviction after claiming illness.
Housing Minister Chris Carter insisted yesterday that Housing New Zealand Corporation was doing all it could to kick the family out of Range View Rd in Mt Albert, after a Tenancy Tribunal hearing found they had breached the conditions of their rental agreement.
He said they were "very keen" to see the eviction take place but that the family had won a week's reprieve because of ill health.
"The mum is sick. We are prepared to give them a week, but they're certainly not staying," Carter said. He said he was aware the eviction would be of relief to the neighbours.
Carter said it was now the family's decision to rent privately, because they had not followed the regulations. He said only 18 tenancies were terminated out of 67,000 last year.
The mother of 10 - nine boys and one girl - opened the door to the Herald on Sunday yesterday, but did not want to speak.
"I've had enough of the media," she said. "This has all been blown out of proportion."
The family's lawyer, John Foliaki, said yesterday that the woman and her children appeared to be the victims of police harassment, and had suffered a "miscarriage of justice".
He applied for a rehearing of the Tenancy Tribunal decision to evict the family because of serious breaches of their agreement with Housing New Zealand Corporation.
The mother was not present at the tribunal hearing because of illness, for which she presented a medical certificate, and Foliaki said that was not fair to the family.
Housing New Zealand confirmed last night that allowing for the legal process currently in motion, it would be pursing the eviction of the tenants. "There will be no reprieves."
The regional manager for central Auckland, Graham Bodman, said the tribunal had found there was "ongoing fear and trepidation, including fear of recrimination, being experienced by the neighbours of the tenants".
Bodman said the family would not be offered another Housing New Zealand home, but it had offered to assist in finding alternative accommodation.
Foliaki questioned where the family, which includes a two-year-old child, would live now. "They're on the road, aren't they? They're on the street. This is a woman with 10 children... They have lived on this street for 20 years ... in this house for 12 years, but they didn't have any problems for 18 of those years."
He said the older boys, who might have been causing trouble, no longer lived at the address, and he intended to investigate the case this week.
Some residents of the road were disappointed to hear of the delay in the eviction, although one neighbour said she thought the family had got better in recent months.
"Our street would be heaps quieter without them," said another neighbour, who was tired of the bad publicity the family had brought to the road.
They said there were many more cars driving up and down the street, wanting to see the "no-go zone". Another neighbour said she hoped they were gone soon.
"I'm sick of things happening, they are fighting a lot, drinking all the time... the police come round twice a day, every day. It's out of control."
One woman, out walking on the street yesterday morning, said the family needed to move on and make a fresh start. "They've got to go... For the last two or three years they have been threatening, intimidating... They are just horrible people.
"If it keeps going like this, someone will get killed, or someone will end up in jail."
