Peter Lewis recounts the below experience of an APIA member clawing his way through a meth contamination nightmare. Take a read:
Joe (not his real name of course) owns a property in the northern suburbs of Auckland. There are three residential houses on this property,
and Joe rents them all out to support himself in his old age.
After one of the houses became vacant, Joe retained the property management department of a large Real Estate firm to find replacement tenants. They sought
applicants for the tenancy of the three bedroom house, carried out the appropriate checks, signed up the new tenants on a fixed term tenancy and they
moved in during May 2015.
The tenants were a couple with three school-age children. As the parents were unemployed, the rent was payable directly from their WINZ benefit to Joe.
Joe then took over the management of the property.
He immediately encountered problems with late night partying disturbing other residents and undesirable acquaintances hanging around the property.
Matters came to a head in February 2016 when the tenants turned hostile.
A regular property inspection (as allowed under the Residential Tenancies Act) was carried out in July 2016. Four methamphetamine tests at that time give
a positive result. That inspection also found that the tenants had done significant damage to the property.
Two weeks later, Joe was featured in a news article on the difficult lives that residential landlords lead, and in particular, the methamphetamine issue
was discussed.
The following weekend the tenants at the property vacated without notice, despite the fixed-term tenancy still having seven months to run.
Although they had removed some of their possessions as they departed when Joe was authorised to enter the property by the Tenancy Tribunal he...
