Neighbours complained to the council about rubbish blocking the footpath outside a Whanganui property.
Photo / Bevan Conley
Neighbours complained to the council about rubbish blocking the footpath outside a Whanganui property.
Photo / Bevan Conley
A Whanganui landlord has got himself on the wrong side of council regulations after dumping his tenants’ rubbish on the footpath.
Dean Treves, who owns the Castlecliff property, said he had been cutting the tenants too much slack because they had been friends.
“It’s just got out of hand,” he said.
“I’ve put up with the situation for far too long. It had got to the point where I had asked them to leave and they refused. They haven’t been paying rent and they just kept tossing all their rubbish outside and letting it pile up.”
Whanganui District Council compliance operations manager Jason Shailer said Treves had been ordered to remove the rubbish by Friday.
“Earlier this week a large amount of household rubbish was cleared from the Manuka St property and dumped on the roadside by the property owner,” he said.
“Our compliance team spoke to the property owner yesterday and let him know that he needs to remove the rubbish.
“The team spoke to him again today and were told he has ordered a skip bin. He has been given until midday on Friday, January 13, to remove the rubbish.
“If the rubbish is not removed by the deadline, the council will consider further enforcement action.”
The council had issued Treves with a $400 fine for depositing litter in a public place.
Neighbours had complained to the council about the pile of rubbish blocking the footpath.
Treves said he went to the address on Thursday afternoon and used a digger to push the pile of rubbish off the footpath and back on to the property.
“I’m not paying to dispose of their rubbish,” he said.
“I just want them to go so I can find some good tenants to live at the house.”
Landlord Dean Treves used a digger to push the rubbish back onto his property on Thursday afternoon. Photo / Bevan Conley
Treves said the current tenants, who had lived at the property for two years, kept the interior of the house tidy but the section had piles of rubbish everywhere.
“I had asked them to sort it out so many times and I was just sick of it.”
Tenancy Services adviser Derek Gibson-Smith said the tenant would be ultimately responsible for the rubbish on the property.
“If they had left the rubbish on departure, the landlord could arrange for disposal and seek to reclaim the cost from the bond,” he said.
“The problem is that tenants sometimes leave with debt that already exceeds the amount of their bond.”
Gibson-Smith said if the tenants were still residing at the property, the landlord should apply to the Tenancy Tribunal to begin proceedings.
A landlord can apply to the Tenancy Tribunal to end a tenancy if rent that was due has remained unpaid for at least five working days on at least three separate occasions within a 90-day period.
Tenants are responsible for keeping the property reasonably clean and tidy and that includes the removal of their rubbish from the property.
