A rare warning about sewage-contaminated rental property where family lived for almost 9 months

Tuesday, 18 February 2025

A family that lived with sewage-soaked carpet for 35 weeks has been awarded $30,615.

The Tenancy Tribunal said landlords Lingzhi Yuan and Leiyang Shen intentionally breached laws in a bid to maximise returns on their investment.

The tribunal published the address of the property in a bid to deter the landlords from leasing the property to others.

A family that suffered a long list of failures by their landlord, including living 35 weeks with sewage-soaked carpet, have been awarded $30,615.

The list of issues and stress experienced by the family renting a house at Albany Heights in Auckland was so bad that the Tenancy Tribunal published the address in order to deter the owners from renting it out in future.

The tenants, whose names were suppressed by the tribunal, must be paid the $30,615 by the property’s owners Lingzhi Yuan and Leiyang Shen.

The tenants, a family of two adults and two children, moved into the property in December 2023.

Their unit was one of three on the property. It was in an old farmhouse that had been split into two separate households. A third unit, in a converted farm shed, was elsewhere on the property.

On April 14 last year, the toilets in the unit blocked, overflowed and flooded the bathroom and surrounding areas with raw sewage.

The family contacted the property manager, Ashton NZ Property Ltd, but did not hear back from them. Out of desperation, they called a plumber, who cleared the blocked sewage line, but it blocked again as soon as the toilet was used.

The property manager got back to the tenants on May 4 and asked for photographs of the damage. They also asked the tenants to rip up the sewage-soaked carpet, dispose of it, and clean the flooring.

The tenants refused to do this due to the health risk.

A second plumber went to the unit on May 4 but was also unable to unblock the pipes.

The property manager did nothing about the toilet being unusable, so the tenants arranged for a portaloo to be delivered.

The portaloo was used from May 6 until July 10. The landlord paid for it.

In June last year, the tenants noticed their neighbour’s sewage was coming up the tenants’ toilet and making their bathroom smell so bad that they couldn’t use it.

The landlord sent another contractor to fix the situation, but the tenants’ toilet remained unusable.

The landlord found major sewage pipe issues across all three properties and in July last year replaced the system.

The tenants later discovered that no septic tank had been installed and the sewage was being channelled into their backyard and their neighbour’s yard.

The sewage-soaked carpet was never lifted. Instead, the landlord sent someone to steam-clean the carpet in early June.

The tenants said the affected area had been soaked in raw sewage for seven weeks. They stopped using the affected areas.

The property manager had inspected the property a few times since the overflow, and said she couldn’t smell anything.

Tribunal adjudicator Michelle Pollak said she found the evidence supported a finding that it was more likely than not that the smell from faecal coliforms in the sewage-soaked carpet would have been present.

Pollak said the family could not use the toilet from May 4 to July 10 last year (9 weeks and 4 days) and have had to live with the sewage-soaked carpet from May 4, 2024 until January 10 this year (35 weeks and 6 days).

“The tenants reasonably expected to be able to use the toilet and the storage cupboard, sunroom, and that door to the bathroom during their tenancy,” she said.

The tenants also had issues with water supply, saying it consistently ran out every 1.5 weeks, and they were often without water for between 24 and 48 hours. This was due to the three units drawing water from the same three small water tanks containing a total of 11,000 litres.

The tenants said they raised this issue constantly with the landlords but were told it would be too costly to put in larger tanks.

The tenants showed the tribunal photographs which appeared to show about 10cm of thick sediment at the bottom of the tanks.

They said they had to buy bottled water because the water from their taps tasted odd and gave them stomach aches.

Pollak found there was sufficient evidence to show that the landlord had not supplied sufficient water for three units, noting that Auckland Council recommended that a household of four people required access to 32,000 litre tanks of water.

Pollak also found that the landlord had failed to provide sufficient smoke alarms.

She said the landlord had committed intentional breaches of the Residential Tenancies Act and the Housing Improvement Regulations.

“These breaches were prolonged and resulted in the tenants and their family living in cold, damp and potentially mouldy conditions without adequate potable water or access to proper toilet facilities and they experienced considerable periods of stress, inconvenience, and loss of the amenities they are paying rent to enjoy,” she said.

She said the repeated breaches of obligations and the landlords “cavalier attitude” to the tenants’ plight warranted an award of $4800.00 in exemplary damages to the tenants.

A further $750 was awarded for the landlords’ failure to provide the tenants with a required healthy homes statement.

The landlords told Pollak they had bought the property in November 2017 when all three premises were tenanted.

Pollak found that the premises rented by the tenants was unlawful, as were the other units, as they did not meet the Building Code and did not have required consents.

She said the landlord would have known this because they had ordered LIM reports at the time of purchase “but decided to rent all three units out to earn money off its investment until it could afford to develop the property it had land banked”.

The landlord told the tribunal that the tenants had only raised concerns after the landlord applied to have the tenancy ended due to recidivist rent breaches.

The tenants said they had continued to live at the premises because they couldn’t find anywhere else affordable in the area.

The tenants had paid $28,391 of the $31,900 they were required to pay in rent from December 2023 to January this year, meaning they owed the landlord $2969.

Pollak said after careful consideration she had decided that the landlord should refund 40% of the rent, meaning the landlords must pay the tenants $9791 after the rent debt was deducted.

The tenants were also awarded compensation for the landlords’ failure to maintain water and the toilets, plus reimbursement of the $1450 they spent on buying bottled water.

A further award of $1500 in exemplary damages must be paid by the landlord for repeated harassment by property managers.

In total, the landlords were ordered to pay the tenants $30,615.57.

The tenant and landlord agreed that the tenancy would end on March 2, with Pollak ordering that the tenants be charged no more than $330 per week for that period.

The landlords asked for their names to be suppressed but Pollak dismissed the application.

“I have decided to publish the tenancy address as a deterrent to the property owners continuing to rent out any of the three current unlawful dwellings at 310 Dairy Flat Highway, Albany Heights, RD3 Auckland, 0793,” she said.

The tenants did not seek name suppression but Pollak made an order suppressing their names so they did not have difficulty finding alternative accommodation.

* The landlords have appealed the tribunal’s decision to the district court.