An Auckland woman has recounted a series of housing horrors - including being only allowed to shower once every three days. Photos / Getty Images, Mark Mitchell
An Auckland woman has recounted a series of housing horrors - including being only allowed to shower once every three days. Photos / Getty Images, Mark Mitchell
A woman says she was only allowed to shower once every three days and subjected to other draconian rules during a series of Auckland housing horrors.
Her plight was partly due to what a community leader described as unethical subletting and greedy landlords - but also an outcome of the broader housing crisis.
Last year the woman, who'd lived in Auckland for a decade and was studying part-time for a healthcare certificate, found herself needing a place to stay.
On Facebook, she saw a room in Blockhouse Bay advertised for $180 a week in a shared house with a married couple and a child.
There was no bed in the room, just a mattress with no sheeting.
She said the owners, a married couple in their mid-30s, imposed draconian rules.
"They only allowed a shower every three days."
She said the house's electricity provider offered one free hour of off-peak power every day and she was only allowed to cook during that hour.
The married couple's obsession with saving money on power bills meant the woman was forbidden from washing clothes more than once a week.
If she couldn't fit some dirty clothes in the machine, she wasn't allowed to wash them.
She said after four weeks, she was depressed and scared and moved again.
A slew of substandard housing situations followed but she said as a single woman studying and on a jobseeker's benefit, she had little support and few options.
Community leader Pratima Nand says she's noticed a major increase in requests to help people find emergency housing. Photo / Supplied
She was frequently in tears when recounting her story to the Herald and didn't want her name published because she feared repercussions from landlords.
Indian community leader Pratima Nand said she was concerned the woman, who did not speak English fluently, would be forced into homelessness at any moment.
Sharon Cullwick of the NZ Property Investors' Federation says education is crucial to preventing and resolving problems for landlords and tenants. Photo / Supplied
Nand said some unethical landlords were also dodging tax, insisting on "cash in hand" payment and bypassing formal bond lodgement processes too.
Nand said people unable to secure long-term housing suffered from extreme stress and depression.
"There is very little or no hope for the homeless to be able to secure a home for themselves, even by next election."
Sharon Cullwick of the New Zealand Property Investors' Federation said little if any legal protection covered someone who moved in without signing a tenancy agreement.
"There's a big difference between a flatmate situation and a landlord-tenant situation."
Cullwick, NZPIF Executive Officer, said Tenancy Services had staff able to speak multiple languages and potentially help people in situations like that of the Kiwi-Indian woman.
"The best thing to do is get educated. If landlords and tenants are having trouble, the best place to go is Tenancy Services."
She said if a person moved in by agreement with a head tenant rather than a landlord, they should sign an agreement with the head tenant or person doing the sub-letting.
But that kind of relationship lacked the legal protections of a tenancy agreement.
Cullwick said if one flatmate exploited another, the aggrieved person could potentially ask the Citizen's Advice Bureau for help.
The Disputes Tribunal could investigate claims up to $30,000.
This week, in response to ongoing concerns about New Zealand's housing crisis, the Government announced the repeal of the Resource Management Act.
Environment minister David Parker said restrictive planning had contributed to a lack of certainty and unaffordable housing in urban areas.
On Tuesday, Finance Minister Robertson said the Government planned to "tilt the balance" toward first-home buyers and wanted to incentivise new builds.
