Slum Properties

The NZ  Herald 11/3/ 2017 featured a $5 million dollar property that it described as a slum. This was a little disappointing in that it appears to pander to the trendy perception that all landlords are bad and because they doing what everyone in capitalist society’s strive for, that is self-improvement of their position, they are somehow held up to be the public's enemy. Maybe tall poppy syndrome  

The article stated that the property was dirty and with rubbish strewn about, also the tenants have alcohol and drug problems. When has it become the landlords responsibility to clean up after the tenant, the best a landlord can do is firstly ask the tenant to clean up, then give the tenant a 14 day letter to do so, if nothing happens after that the landlord can apply to the tenancy tribunal to make a ruling, this often takes a further 6 weeks, but if the tenant still does not comply the landlord needs to ask a bailiff to serve a removal notice , this in itself is not a simple matter and often the tenant is able to evade the bailiff.

The end result is an exercise in frustration for the landlord.

The article seemed to suggest that the filthy state of the property was the landlords fault, where in the article was there any mention on the tenants responsibility’s, next we will be expecting landlords to be responsible for the vermin or flies because the tenant has left 3 months’ worth of rubbish under the house .

I’m all for exposing slum landlords but I also expect more balanced reporting and not this lazy sort of coverage that just reinforces this public stereotype nonsense       

Go Nuts