Doors black with grime, filthy carpet and a smell that screams sickness. Mary Williams went behind one family’s door in South Dunedin and asked if enough is being done to stop landlords renting out unhealthy homes.
Diane* and her mother Shirley* say they like their landlord.
"He is good!" Diane says.
"He comes round with food and stuff. He gives us Easter presents, Christmas presents, you name it."
On the outside of the tiny cottage they have rented for the past 13 years, a section of wall is covered in building paper. A rotten window ledge has fallen away. Wires droop randomly.
The cottage was originally built for railway workers in the 1890s, its floorboards laid directly on the earth. The 2015 flood, which inevitably came inside, was "horrible", Diane says.
If the cottage has heritage value, the value of Diane and Shirley’s lives and their need for a safe, warm home surely ranks higher.
Inside the cottage, doors are black with grime or mould — it’s hard to tell which — and the small living area has an ancient, filthy carpet.
There is a sickly smell in the air.
Shirley, in her late 60s, is a breast cancer survivor, has arthritis in her knees and uses a walker, but doesn’t get out much.
Diane, in her 40s, has a disability and doesn’t work, but has participated in the Special Olympics. She likes living a short walk from her sports club — flat South Dunedin is a popular suburb for people with disabilities.
University of Otago public health research fellow Lucy Telfar-Barnard says houses that cannot be
brought up to standard need to be demolished, "but no-one really has the appetite for that when there is a housing shortage and people are struggling to find anything with a roof at a price they can afford".
In 2019, the government introduced its healthy homes standards,
which set requirements for heating, insulation, ventilation and draught stopping.
However, Diane and Shirley’s landlord does not have to comply with the standards until July next year — landlords with long-term tenants were given six years to meet the requirements.
Ms Telfar-Barnard says the standards are only a start.
One problem is that a building may be fitted with the things stipulated in the standards, but still not achieve the outcome of being safe and healthy — for example, free from mould.
"You can have a house that has a heat pump but is on the south side of a slope and gets very little sun and you can’t put your finger on where the mould is coming from. That property is entirely legal and it shouldn’t be."
A tougher warrant of fitness and enforcement by accredited inspectors is needed, she says.
At present, landlords can self-certify that they are healthy homes compliant.
Presbyterian Support Otago’s "Old, Cold and Costly" report into old housing in Dunedin concluded that the poorest people were a "captive market" for old, rotten properties and that stronger tenant protection within the Residential Tenancies Act (RTA) was needed.
That report is now 20 years old and the RTA is once again under review.
A proposed amendment now before Parliament proposes a rule that prevents landlords evicting without cause be removed. If it is, landlords will be able to issue 90-day notices to people on periodic tenancy agreements without having to supply a reason for the eviction.
Tenants can take their landlords to the Tenancy Tribunal if they think they are living in substandard housing, and there is a law against retaliatory evictions, but there is a fear among tenants that "the landlord will wait a few months and then give me my notice and I will be stuck", Ms Telfar-Barnard says.
The issue of tenancy rights is particularly important in South Dunedin where, according to the latest census data, more than four in 10 homes are rented, compared with about three in 10 across the city.
Crucially, more than three-quarters of the landlords in South Dunedin are private landlords, not Kainga Ora or the local authority.
COSY Homes Trust chairman and former Dunedin mayor Aaron Hawkins says letting landlords evict tenants easily "would mean more people in our community either living in unhealthy housing or homeless".
"No-cause evictions undermine every single right that tenants have, because why would you risk standing up for yourself when you can just get booted out?
"Landlords can already evict tenants who aren’t paying their rent, for anti-social behaviour, or to move their family back in.
"What other valid reasons are there?
"We need to get over this idea that renters are either young people on their way to owning property, or people who have made poor life decisions.
"Roughly one in three households are renting, and increasingly renting for life.
"They deserve housing security, the ability to make lasting connections with their community and homes that don’t make them sick.
"These changes to the Residential Tenancies Act will only make those things less likely than they already are."
Another limitation of the healthy homes standards is exemptions.
Under-floor insulation is compulsory — but only where it is reasonably practical to install.
It is not possible to install under floorboards that sit on the ground.
Ms Telfar-Barnard calls for landlords to be upfront about any exemptions when advertising properties for rent, as poorly insulated homes inevitably cost more to heat.
The enforcement of private rental property standards is very limited.
There is a building warrant of fitness (BWOF), which requires some building owners to submit evidence to their council that their buildings comply with certain rules and the government advises councils to check compliance on a percentage of those buildings every year.
However, a BWOF is only required for a building fitted with one or more systems, such as emergency lighting and sprinklers.
Most private rentals are not, so they are not audited.
Mr Hawkins points out that "any meaningful warrant of fitness for rentals would need to be outcome-oriented".
"This does make it less straightforward, though, because there are outcomes that can be driven by tenant behaviour as well as by the condition of the building."
NOT using a heat pump, to save on heating bills, is one example of tenant behaviour that people, particularly those on a tight budget, are more likely to do.
There is a heat pump on the wall of Diane and Shirley’s living space, but they don’t use it.
"I keep warm with blankets", Shirley says.
When asked how she is, Shirley says "not bad".
She lies on a sofa above the filthy carpet, the floorboards and the earth.
A cup sits on an upturned bucket, next to an over-flowing bin. An electrical extension lead passes over her head and dangles in coils in the middle of the floor.
Some time after the 2015 flood, their landlord raised the bedrooms’ floorboards a few centimetres off the ground.
Diane says he has a plan to do this in the living area and recarpet, but she doesn’t know when this might happen.
A dark wood, glass-fronted cabinet sits in the corner. It looks incongruous in the poverty-stricken room and Shirley says it is one of the landlord’s gifts. He charges $300 a week, recently increased from $275.
In response to a request to comment, the Dunedin City Council said it had no responsibility for private rental accommodation standards and says it has not offered home insulation grants since 2021.
However, it employed an eco-designer, who could be booked to visit people’s homes — for free — and advise on heating and insulation.
Dunedin City Council principal policy adviser housing Gill Brown said her focus was on "finding ways to encourage and enable development of modern, warm and affordable homes that keep people healthy and safe".
When contacted, Diane and Shirley’s landlord said he kept his rental properties "low key".
"I keep my head down. I mind my own business. I keep people happy."
*Names changed to protect identities.