Two weeks on from the destruction of cyclone Gabrielle, Muriwai residents are frustrated, there's no timeline for when or if they can return to their homes.
Greg Montgomery and his wife Tania have found temporary accomodation for two more months, but are preparing for the reality it could take up to a year before things are resolved.
"We're in this limbo land where no one's really responsible," he told Newshub.
We've got months potentially ahead before we can access properties."
His forever home is on Motutara road, two doors down from the slip which took the lives of two firemen.
After the slip, he was given two opportunities to gather belongings; the first time he had a couple of minutes, the second time just 30 seconds.
He sprinted around his home, grabbing important documents, his wife's Korowai and the cat.
Montgomery's home is still standing but has been red stickered because of the land around it.
It's now an insurance headache.
"Because there's no loss or damage it hasn't triggered the policy, the only thing that's triggered to date is our temporary accommodation," he said.
Eager for answers, he travelled for an hour and forty minutes to a meeting of Muriwai residents last night.
"How long are we going to be homeless for?" was the clarion call to which they got little in the way of a response.
In Muriwai 113 homes have been red-stickered but 75 homes along Domain crescent are yet to be assessed because the ground there is still moving.
"We haven't individually assessed each individual building there because it's been too dangerous to do it," building consents manager Ian McCormick said at the meeting.
He said even the FENZ team had to withdraw from the assessment.
"I don't want to guarantee you that we're going to be in there in two weeks or three weeks or four weeks or five weeks because we don't know," Craig Hobbs from the council said.
They were met with frustration and tensions grew. It was a communications palava.
Today, Hobbs conceded, they should have released an agenda ahead of the meeting.
"Some people did drive a significant distance and then found we couldn't tell them anything, I acknowledge that it wasn't good enough and we'll rectify that in the future,"he said.
Greg Montgomery says he spends hours on the phone repeating the same information to call centre workers from banks and insurers.
"I rang the insurer today and they're asking when can the assessor visit and I have to say I have no control," he said.
His red sticker notice informed him of rates relief but only if he filled yet another form.
Councillor Shane Henderson hopes the communication kinks will be ironed out soon.
He recognised the need for information to be centralised for residents, council, insurers and banks to access.
"It must be so tough for people that are just trying to put their lives back together, that have lost so much, to then have to go through the trauma again and again," Henderson said.
Greg and Tania are among hundreds in Muriwai who've been displaced from their homes.
They are stuck wondering how long 'temporary' will last.
