Tenants kept awake by cockroaches ‘scuttling across ceiling’ awarded $12,000

A photo of American sewer cockroaches invading a home in Epsom, Auckland. It's unclear what type of cockroach kept the tenants involved in a recent Tenancy Tribunal case up at night, but the rental was costing them $1300 a week. Photo / NZ Herald

Tenants lived with a cockroach infestation so bad they were kept awake at night by the bugs “scuttling across the ceiling”.

The insects also destroyed the original and then the replacement dishwasher in the $1300 weekly rental where the six tenants were blamed for the bug outbreak.

They were also threatened with eviction if they did not pay more than $700 to replace a toilet they were blamed for breaking, and were left without a stove top for months before being asked to buy a replacement for $250.

Their rent increased to $1400 per week on January 1 this year, and they moved out the following month.

Now, according to a recently released Tenancy Tribunal decision, the landlord has been ordered to pay the unnamed tenants more than $12,000 in compensation and damages to recognise not only the failed maintenance on the property but an unlawful rent increase in the time they lived there.

The law says a tenant’s rent must not be increased within 12 months after the tenancy starts.

However, the agent for the landlord said the matter has been appealed to the district court, with a hearing set for October 1.

The property, the location of which was suppressed, was rented through PR Property Management Limited as the agent for Bhavika Enterprises Ltd.

The Auckland agent named in the decision, Ram Narayanaraja, told NZME the grounds for the appeal included that the adjudicator’s decision was “wrong”.

“Everything was wrong, the decision was wrong,” Narayanaraja said.

At the time the tenants lodged their claim with the tribunal the landlord filed a cross-application for compensation but it was dismissed because he could not prove his claims.

He alleged the tenants did not leave the premises reasonably clean and tidy, did not remove all rubbish and left the place “contaminated with cockroaches” that were not present at the beginning of the tenancy.

But their evidence proved the cockroach infestation was present when they moved in. Text messages showed they reported a cockroach issue to the landlord after they viewed the house and decided to rent it.

The house was treated not long after but it didn’t work and the problem got worse.

Eventually, the tenants purchased pest bombs themselves to try to kill the cockroaches, which held them at bay for a short while before they “soon returned in full force”.

“The tenants endured a severe cockroach infestation for the duration of their tenancy that interrupted their sleep at night from the sounds of them scuttling across the ceilings and caused issues with the dishwasher appliances,” tribunal judicial officer Michelle Pollak said in the decision.

She said the ongoing infestation also meant all their belongings had to be decontaminated before they could safely move their belongings into new premises.

The tenants’ claim for compensation and exemplary damages was successful, with the largest portion of the total $12,640 award being almost $5000 in rent rebate because the landlord failed to maintain the dishwasher.

When the tenants moved in on January 9 last year they found the dishwasher was old and not working.

The landlord agreed to replace it, and almost a month later the new appliance arrived, but three months later it stopped working.

The dishwasher technician told the tenants the cockroach infestation had led to the breakdown of the initial, and the replacement, dishwasher.

The law says a tenant’s rent must not be increased within 12 months after the tenancy starts. Photo / 123rf

The landlord bought a new dishwasher, which was installed in August last year, and even though the previous dishwasher had been damaged by cockroaches, no further pest control was undertaken.

Only one of five gas hobs on the stovetop was working when they moved in, which was not sufficient for six tenants to cook their meals.

They were also worried about the safety risks of having a faulty gas hob stove, and the landlord committed to getting this issue fixed.

More than a month later, the landlord asked the tenants to go to a residential address to pick up a new stove and told them they would have to pay the seller $250 in cash but the tenants refused.

A few days later the landlord dropped off the stovetop but it sat uninstalled until March when a technician arrived and found the dimensions were incorrect for the benchtop.

Despite regular requests from the tenants the problem was not fixed until April when a new stovetop was installed.

Then, in August last year, a letter sent by email dated “30 October 2023″, informed the tenants their rent would increase by $100 a week from January 1 this year.

They began paying the new weekly rental of $1400 before leaving the premises on February 8,

The tribunal awarded a rent rebate of $3642 for the time the tenants were without a stovetop, partly for the inconvenience but also the additional costs of having to buy in food as they could not cook meals on the one gas hob.

The tribunal said in awarding $2400 in exemplary damages that the landlord had acted unlawfully in that the breaches were intentional.

“The tenants lived in a cockroach-infested premise that was both undesirable and unhealthy for the duration of their tenancy and the landlord failed to ensure they had adequate stove top cooking and dishwasher facilities for a significant period.

“The landlord knew of these issues and failed to investigate them fully or to remediate them in a reasonable timeframe,” Pollak said.

The tenants also paid to get rid of green waste from a neighbour trimming trees on the fence line plus disposal of the two broken dishwashers and the old gas hob.

The landlord produced a receipt for pest control services to carry out a cockroach treatment two weeks after the tenancy ended.

Tracy Neal is a Nelson-based Open Justice reporter at NZME. She was previously RNZ’s regional reporter in Nelson-Marlborough and has covered general news, including court and local government for the Nelson Mail.