‘They just shrugged’: Decades-old burst pipe causes slip, leaving residents homeless

Wednesday, 6 August 2025

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Two Wellington homeowners forced to flee their properties after two landslides say they’ve been abandoned by the very agencies that caused the damage ‒ and still don’t know if their homes are safe to return to.

The slips, triggered by a burst water pipe installed in the 1960s, destroyed a set of steps and sent debris surging toward two hillside properties.

Residents Mel Dawson and Wendy Nolan, who own the neighbouring Wadestown houses, were evacuated by fire crews early Monday.

But more than 24 hours later, they were still waiting for Wellington City Council or council-owned utility Wellington Water to tell them when they can safely return and explain what happens next.

“The feeling is like they don't care,” Dawson said. “No-one has checked in with us, no-one has told us whether our home is safe to access.”

Both women described a chain of miscommunication and buck-passing between the council, Wellington Water and emergency services.

“I was standing there with three council staff, all from different departments, and they were literally saying, ‘Not us, it’s them’ … like a kids’ game. It’s roads, it’s water, it’s someone else. That’s all we got,” Nolan said.

Dawson said the ordeal began around 7am, when her partner, Sam Farrell, heard water and noticed a tree slipping down the slope.

“We opened the front door and could see soil coming over the retaining wall. We realised our neighbour’s stairs had gone, completely collapsed.”

She called emergency services. With access impossible, firefighters used Dawson’s property to reach Nolan and and her partner and evacuated both households. They were told to pack quickly and leave immediately.

“We didn’t even know where we were going ‒ we took the dog to a friend’s for the night, and then paid for a hotel,” Dawson said.

“They [firefighters] said we’d hear something soon. But we didn’t. Nothing for the rest of the day.”

Both homeowners made repeated calls to Wellington City Council, Wellington Water, and Fire and Emergency New Zealand (FENZ), trying to find out whether the houses had been assessed.

“Wellington Water said call the council. Council said maybe call the fire service. No-one knew who was meant to tell us if we could go home,” Dawson said.

“I kept getting put on hold, told ‘this hasn’t happened before’. I was like, ‘really? This is Wellington’.

“It’s so frustrating. I've had more than one person from the council say to me today, well, it has rained a lot lately.”

Nolan experienced the same. “At 3pm I called the council and they didn’t know who I was. I said, ‘My stairs have collapsed, I can’t access my house, and you’re telling me no-one’s logged that?’”

Eventually, she heard a council engineer was on the way ‒ only to learn they had come and gone without speaking to either neighbour.

No formal safety or geotech assessment has been provided, despite two slips now affecting their properties, the residents said.

“Two women turned up from the council ‒ I’m still not exactly sure what department they were from, but they were the ones who deal with red-stickering houses,” Nolan said. “They said, ‘Well, we could red-sticker it, but then you wouldn’t be able to get back into the property, so that’s probably not going to be very helpful for you’.

“We asked, ‘Has the engineer even been yet?’ and they just shrugged and said it was a complicated process with a lot of moving parts. Another man ‒ I think his name was Jerry ‒ was there too. He seemed nice, but he also just shrugged and said, ‘There’s not much we can do until it’s assessed by a geotechnical firm’.

“I said, ‘Well, who’s arranging that? Shouldn’t that have happened yesterday?’ And again — more shrugging.

“Meanwhile, our houses could literally slide down the hill.”

Nolan is too scared to return. “We asked if it was safe to stay and they just shrugged. No-one will actually say yes or no.

“There’s no way I’m sleeping there. I don’t know how bad it is underneath the house and I’m not going to be buried in it.”

Dawson’s deck sits directly above the main slip. “The part of the house that’s right by the landslip ‒ that’s where our bedroom is. And they’ve said not to go on the deck. So how can I sleep with my head three metres from that? We’re just not willing to risk it.”

The first person the council sent was not an engineer, but an arborist.

“Our concern is that it's meant to rain a lot from Thursday, this tree will come down on our house. The arborist tried to mansplain weather to me. Then he shrugged and said he couldn’t do anything because it was an active slip.”

In frustration, the neighbours hired their own aborist to tackle the trees.

On Tuesday, work began on creating temporary access to Nolan’s property.

The residents say they are now caught in a confusing no-man’s land of responsibility. The pipe that burst runs under council-owned road reserve and the damaged access stairs are also on council land.

Wellington Water and the council are yet to accept liability. Meanwhile, insurers say the slips don’t meet criteria for coverage ‒ and the Natural Hazards Commission (formerly EQC) has told them it won’t pay out because the event wasn’t a “natural disaster”.

“So who’s going to pay to fix this?” Dawson said. “Insurance won’t pay unless the whole house collapses. So do we just wait for it to fall?”

Nolan added: “I’ve lived here 13 years. There have been constant water issues on the street. They patch a pipe, it leaks again. They patch it again. The pipe they pulled out yesterday was rusted and crumbling ‒ the workers even said, ‘No wonder’.”

Much of Wellington’s water pipe network ranges from 30 to more than 100 years old, and nearly half of the region’s treated water is lost to leaks. Since early 2024, urgent leaks are being fixed faster and the council has committed $2.7 billion over 10 years for pipeline and plant upgrades.

A spokesperson for the council said it was “not in a position to answer all of your questions today”.

Council staff visited the site on Monday after the pipe burst was reported, he said.

“Since then we have been working with Wellington Water and geotechnical engineers and have been liaising with the affected residents.

“Our building compliance staff have advised the occupants of two houses to stay out of their houses overnight while further geotechnical checks are done and the safety of a return to the houses is assessed. We’ll be working [Wednesday] to arrange temporary access to one of the properties.”

A spokesperson for Wellington Water said: “At this stage, we are unable to answer all your questions given the nature and context.”

The utility responded to an “urgent water leak service” at around 8.20am on Monday after FENZ reported a burst water main, the spokesperson said.

“A crew has since fixed the water main and service was restored to the affected properties at 2.50pm [Monday]. The water main was an asbestos cement pipe installed in the 1960s. Approximately 3.5 metres of pipe was replaced.

“Our key priority is always to return water service to our customers as soon as possible, which we did in 4.5 hours.”

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