by Gareth Hughes
Renting? What’s your flat like? If you are like a huge number of tenants renting, chances are your flat is cold, damp and unhealthy. The poor state of our rental housing is one of the biggest issues facing students, the young, the elderly and our poorest and most vulnerable.
I’m in Dunedin tomorrow, thermometer in hand checking out, and staying the night in some of the cold damp rentals there. Over the coming weeks I’m touring the country talking to people about my Private Members’ Bill to see a minimum standard for rental properties to achieve warm, healthy rentals. I’m also going to try and find some of the worst examples of cold, damp unhealthy rentals. Do you, or someone you know, live in a horrible rental? I’d love to hear your stories and see your pictures and you can share them on Facebook.
Like many, I’ve rented some pretty dire houses over the years. I cursed the designer of my last flat in Mt Albert, Auckland because he or she provided a massive bathroom that got great all day sun, but the bedroom, kitchen and lounge (ok, every other room) was in almost perpetual darkness. Living in Holloway Rd, down a cold Wellington valley, was probably my dampest, most unhealthy flat. In this house you’d see your breath no matter what time of day, it literally got only one hour of sun between 2-3pm, and clothes left on the floor overnight were wet come morning. The grossest manifestation of my range of cold, damp flats were the mushrooms growing in the shower of one house I rented.
By first world standards, the state of our 450,000 rental houses is appalling which has massive impacts downstream on tenants health, energy bills and on the economy. I believe everyone deserves a healthy home that is affordable to heat. We deserve to live in dignity – inside warm, healthy homes.
Published in Environment & Resource Management by Gareth Hughes on Wed, July 28th, 2010
Tags: housing, warm healthy rentals
More posts by Gareth Hughes | more about Gareth Hughes
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
I had a flat in Newtown Wellington which just grew mold. One day we noticed dripping coming from the ceiling of a bedroom, onto the bed (we were on the bottom floor of a two story house). I poked my thumb on the ceiling, and the ceiling collapsed and several buckets of water came out. After the landlord came around to fix the problem, we found the leak was directly underneath the upstairs toilet … I never did ascertain for certain where the water originated, and I probably wouldn’t want to know.
Two houses later also had a mold problem and my wife was always sick. We found the washing machine outlet pipe emptied straight onto the ground underneath the house.
Another two houses later we had exposed broken asbestos (its not actually that risky if you leave it alone). To the landlord’s credit, he was around the same day we reported it and covered it up properly, so I suppose this can’t really be classed as a sub-standard house … it could have happened to anyone.
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At present the landlord just has to give us notice for the required period, and we have to move. This is most disruptive, especially with children at school, and the possibility of having to change schools and so on.
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samiuela – A reliable tennant who takes pride in looking after a property is a HUGE asset to a landlord. They are very valuable indeed.
It also puts you in a position to negotiate different terms (i.e longer period of notice required). Many landlords would be happy to do this for good tennants.
It can be a win win situation. You get more security, and with happy tennants, so does the landlord.
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My first house was “L” shaped and my neighbors was a mirror image. His house got the morning sun my living areas froze until the afternoon. It was built it a building boom in the 1950′s when if a developer didn’t sell the state would purchase them as state houses. It had louvre windows and no insulation. It’s a student flat now.
I wonder if there isn’t an argument for the state having a controlling interest in all building so it can tell people “times up everyone out- we bowl the neighborhood and rebuild it. What happens at present is that investors let the areas run down. Noisy unruley tenants chase existing homeowners out, the area gets rebuilt but in a mealy-mouthed way the next slums are produced.
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I never expected a subsidy because it makes so much sense.
The way to address this problem is to test all dwellings over time and put the status of the insulation on the LIM report and require landlords and letting agents to advise potential renters of the state of insulation.
The market would soon sort it out.
Sellers would either pay to upgrade or have to discount the price to allow the purchaser to do it.
Information is much more efficient and cost effective.
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samuiela
It’s called a lease.
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My favourite story is my friend who once flung out her hand in her flat. The wall was so damp (and poorly constructed) that her hand went through the wall, creating a hole. Also I know somebody (living in Dunedin) who claimed that they would wake up to find ice on the inside of the windows.
My own flats have all been in Auckland so not so cold. Although, of course, we do have mould growing on our living room walls all year round (but especially in winter). The landlord has hardly spent a cent on the property since it was built (with illegal wiring, plumbing, and I suspect construction standards) 40 years ago.
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Fully supportive!! It’s terrible that cold damp houses are taken to be the norm among students and other tenants. This is my first year as a student living in a home with a heat pump – it’s luxury!
This problem doesn’t just belong to flats. Wellington’s only affordable Hall of Residence in Karori, home to 100 students, has cronic problems with mould and damp.
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As a landlord I once had a tenant just looking for a place who asked me if mine had insulation. Another tenant was interested in my building a garage. It is an expensive venture to do those things and the tenant certainly would not want to have a raised rent for either so they just have to settle for less I am afraid and keep looking, which they did. Good luck at the reasonable rent I was asking. My good tenants, over a dozen years, always knew I would be there to fix a leak in the roof or anything else so paying out expenses for such things as they arise is reasonable. If a landlord can only afford to fix as it goes, then what is the problem? When I got a tenant from hell, I sold the house (noise, domestics, vandalism to neighbours’ property). The new owner did not get rid of her when the contract ended which I would have, so I feel terrible for the neighbours. Never again. It is a big responsibility.
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I’m concerned that the way the Greens are going about the Warm Healthy Rental campaign it might end up back-firing. I’m sure the campaign will get a lot of support from students and other people with low incomes, but I imagine there are a large number of middle-income (and some who are not even middle-income) property investors who will resent the Green Party’s perceived “intrusion” into the way they run their properties.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a Green Party member myself and I fully support moves to make New Zealand homes much more energy efficient, more comfortable and more sustainable. I also believe that there probably are some landlords (though far from the majority) who really don’t care about the well-being of their tenants as long as the rent’s coming in. I’m just concerned that, as over 40% of New Zealand landlords only own one, usually heaviiy mortgaged rental property and are facing probable interest increases in the future and eroding property values, it could well be that many landlords are under as much financial stress as their tenants at the moment and this campaign might come across as a kick in the teeth.
When I was living in Dunedin last year our landlord was a nurse with a wife and two kids – definately not rolling in cash. I think they were actually renting another house for themselves while renting out their own house, which they had bought with a plan to move in to a few years from now. We were treated fairly well and on top of the heat pump that they installed they also fixed up our fireplace so it could be used again and had insulation put in while we were there.
As I had a community services card at the time, the landlord was able to a get a 60% subsidy for the insulation that was put in. You mention yourself that although this kind of support has been available for landlords for years, uptake has been low, and I think that this is the problem you should be really focussing on. Surely, rather than simply going around the universities asking students to “tell us how cold you are”, you and others in the campaign should be actively working with landlords and organizations such as the New Zealand Property Investors Federation to make sure that all landlords know about the support that’s available. As well as the cold flats, will you be visiting warm, well-insulated flats, where landlords have made the insulation improvements and are – generally – rewarded by having more responsible, appreciative tenants? Will you be meeting with the Otago Property Investors Association when you’re down in Dunedin?
Landlords – just as much as their tenants – are potential Green Party supporters, but the way it has come across in the media it kind of looks like the Greens are against them. Was it really necassary for your member’s bill to threaten legislating against poorly insulated rentals? A lot of commentators have noted that landlords will simply pass on the costs of improvements to their tenants, which is all the more reason for you to be making sure that the landlords are getting all the support they can get.
I really feel that a move by the Greens to “outlaw” poorly insulated rental properties will be in the eyes of many New Zealanders yet another nanny state threat – one that could contribute to the Greens being left out in the politcal cold for another term. Even if the members bill were to be pulled from the ballot I’m pretty certain the government wouldn’t let it go through anyway and the Greens will have achieved nothing apart from pissing off a lot of middle-income single property landlords who will have another reason not to vote green. Sure, the cold flats tour might impress a lot of university students but they are the ones who tend to vote green anyway (if they vote at all).
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Duncan says “I’m concerned that the way the Greens are going about the Warm Healthy Rental campaign it might end up back-firing. I’m sure the campaign will get a lot of support from students and other people with low incomes, but I imagine there are a large number of middle-income (and some who are not even middle-income) property investors who will resent the Green Party’s perceived “intrusion” into the way they run their properties.”
You are probably rightfor some people, however I thought Gareth’s ideas came over on the tv bnews a couple of nights ago as perfectly reasonable.
And with a long run in period (2018?) there is plenty of time for landlords to improve their properties – that sounded very reasonable as well.
I think this sort of approach will get a lot more support from middle NZ – well done Gareth.
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Duncan has a point – it’s not the what but the how, the strategy to ensure that insulation is supported in a way that landlords can utilise it.
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Insulating rental properties should be directly tax deductable, not a capital (depreciated) item.
At present, to get a subsidy, your insulation must be installed by an approved installer. Thus it ends up paying for the installation and not the insulation.
As I’ve stated before… I’d have it set up thus: pay full price for your insulation/double glazing/draftproofing. Install it yourself or by anyone else you choose (approved or not I don’t care). Get it independently inspected by infra-red and other methods to ensure it’s done right. Upon passing that house would get a rating that would go on the title and could be used to advertise (Snugmark?). The owner would then, and only then, get paid the subsidy in the form of a refund.
No subsidy should be available for space heating and certainly none for houses that have not met the ‘snugmark’.
Heat pump waterheating should be rolled out nationwide. Heat pump house heating should not.
Un-flued gas heating should be banned.
Smart meters that give active feedback to the occupants should be eveywhere, power companies/ lines companies required to reward efficient users in real-time, or as close to real-time as possible.
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I live in a lovely old house that was built as best they could build it 130 years ago. It’s drafty and frigid. There is little scope for insulation, though, as there’s almost nowhere to put it without doing damage and/or major work on the house. It’s cold, and generally damp, but we have a dehumidifier and use it a lot, as well as our heaters, so we do pay much bigger power bills than I’ve had elsewhere. Our landlord is lovely and we are good tenants. My next flat will be chosen with warmth and heating efficiency in mind, though.
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Well Miss you could be wrong about little scope for insulation. With my 114 year old house the first thing I did in 1979 was insulate the ceilings to double the existing standard. Most old houses have sufficient roof space to do this; also Insulwool can be blown into low roof pitch spaces. The next thing I did was take off the scrim linings (still common in over 100 yr houses)and removal of a few lining boards enabled me to thread batts into the walls before relining them. Then the living room/kitchen area needed re-piling and I insulated the floor when this was done. Finally I have double glazed the bedroom windows without replacing sashes. The windows no longer produce puddles of water hence the DG will prevent them rotting; something landlords would be wise to consider.
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Samiam’s comments generally very useful: especially smart meters (GP policy I think) and tax deductible as maintenance rather than capital with some kind of rating as part of it. The meters and rating would be very helpful to landlords too in terms of choosing the best systems.
Re the very old house, ceiling insulation and double-glazing are good options. For tenants, heat pumps are not always cheap to run – my daughter turned hers off because she simply couldn’t afford the power bills. More modern ones might be better though. Keeping the heat in is the best option.
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Yes Janine keeping the heat in is the best option. Regards the heat pump it is about a third the cost of other forms of electric heating. So if your daughter has not got a cheap source of firewood she just needs to turn the heat pump to a lower temperature during the day and when she is in bed sleeping. It is a matter of how you manage heating. Having recently returned from Britain where many homes are centrally heated they have got used to having all rooms heated to 20 to 24 degrees 24 hours a day. Now gas prices have gone up 40% they are finding it too expensive. The problem with central heating and heat pumps is that they operate automatically. To be economical one has to be sensible and override, or change, settings when you do not need the heat. Our heat pump is set to drop 2 degrees when there is nobody in the room and we only have it on 19 degrees for a maximum of four hours each evening. This way it costs less to run than the log fire we previously had.
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Heat pumps are touted as efficient but just end up costing more as people crank them up higher and use them longer. they then use them in summer as well. Result a drain on our nation and the individuals within. A cunning ploy by those who make $$$ out of energy.
I don’t even like the kind of heat they produce. Standing under a hair dryer, no thanks.
Hot water heat pumps are a different. They lower the grid demand by 60%+, they save the individual $$$ year round. They work just as well for an uninsulated house as any other.
Greenz you should be exposing the hair dryer type for the crock they are and promoting the water heaters for everyone.
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Samiam I largely agree except that floor mounted heat pumps and well positioned wall mounted ones do not act like a hair dryer. As far as I not hot water heat pumps are more expensive to install because of the plumbing for the radiators. Yes if they are integrated with the hot water supply for the bathroom and kitchen in an all electric house they are probably a better solution. Even hot water heat pumps will not prevent them “costing more as people crank them up higher and use them longer.”
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I wasn’t advocating central heating, just domestic hot water heated via heat pump to replace standard resistance elements currently in HW cylinders. 60-70% energy saving right out of the box. A winner on all counts and better in most (NZ) situations than solar.
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E-prophet, yeah, we do still have the scrim & scarping in the whole house. All your suggestions sound great, but our kind and lovely landlord isn’t exactly loaded with excess cash. The roof needs replacing and the whole house needs a paint job, so the ceiling insulation (and as it’s a skinny pointy house we only have about 3sqm of ceiling, right up top), scrim removal, batts-threading then scrim replacement, re-piling, floor insulation, and double-glazing of all windows definitely has to wait!!
If he was eligible for funding to do all this, he’d snap it up, but none of it is an option til he’s at least paid off his mortgages. After all, he’s not paying our heating bills, so status quo is waaaay more convenient for him right now. In the meantime, I’ll put on another jumper!
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The flat I live in at the moment is wonderful in summer but horrible in winter. I have to wash all my cloths every two weeks whether I wear them or not because they get moldy. My bed and bedding is damp. I’ve told this to my landlord and his solution is to have the windows open all the time (all through winter) to allow for ventilation. He thinks insulation is a government conspiracy and that old houses are the best because they “breath”
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