A pair of Kiwi landlords have been ordered to pay a tenant tens of thousands of dollars for failing to solve a major pest infestation, fix a collapsed wall or empty a pungent septic tank at their "barely habitable" rental.
The Tenancy Tribunal told Victor and Lilly Yeoh to hand over more than $38,000 for ignoring an order to carry out remedial work on the damp, uninsulated house, the whereabouts of which are suppressed.
The tenant first raised concerns about the state of the property not long after moving in. After getting essential repairs done early on with the Yeohs' guidance, she claims they soon stopped engaging with her on further maintenance issues.
While she knew the property was worse for wear at the beginning of her tenancy, she told the tribunal she didn't appreciate the full extent of the problems until after she had moved in.
One of the worst problems was a pest infestation, she said.
"The house was and still is prodigiously infested with rats, mice, and opossums," the tribunal order reads. "They invaded the ceilings, walls, and have regularly got inside, leaving droppings and damaging the tenant's and her flatmate's property."
The tenant says their movements in the walls and ceilings frightened and repulsed her, frequently keeping her awake at night. On one occasion, a rat bit her flatmate while he was in the process of laying bait.
But the pests weren't the only issue: the roof also leaked, with a bout of heavy rainfall in May 2018 causing a large gap to appear between a wall and the floor.
The Yeohs couldn't organise repairs, as they had by this time moved to Australia - but things got worse without intervention, and a bathroom wall soon caved in due to water damage.
Additional problems included some unusable power sockets and the "revolting" smell of an unemptied septic tank permeating the home. The property's wiring was also found to be badly worn and there were no smoke detectors, making the house "unsafe, even dangerous".
"I accept the tenant's submission that there was a tipping point in about August and September of 2019 when the ever-accumulating and worsening maintenance issues became so great that the premises were barely habitable," the Tenancy Tribunal order reads.
"The tenant would never have moved into any premises that were in such a poor state of repair. No reputable property management company would have let such premises."
On September 20 last year, the tribunal ordered the Yeohs to carry out remedial work, but they failed to. As a result the tribunal has now ordered them to pay the tenant $38,300.87, the bulk of which is made up of rent reductions.
It's understood the Yeohs didn't have the money to be able to carry out the remedial work required, and they have now put the property up for sale.
