A Christchurch landlord who failed to do a methamphetamine test before his tenant moved in has been permitted to evict her on grounds of meth contamination because a brand-new front door he installed after the tenancy began subsequently tested positive for methamphetamine.
The Tenancy Tribunal will not usually terminate a tenancy on the grounds of methamphetamine contamination unless there has been a pre-tenancy test, but adjudicator J Greene said the replacement front door installed a week after the tenancy started was then shown to be contaminated “and is proof of probable methamphetamine contamination during the tenancy”.
The old door had to be replaced because a circular saw had been used to cut through it.
Tenant Bridget Quartermain was represented at the Tenancy Tribunal hearing by her mother, who said in the absence of a pretenancy methamphetamine report, landlord Barry Gamble could not prove her daughter caused the contamination at the Linwood flat.
While Gamble says he did not have the premises tested before the tenancy, he produced evidence that methamphetamine had been used and possibly manufactured at the premises, resulting in the contamination in six rooms to levels well in excess of 15 μg/100cm2. That is above the level considered dangerous to health. Only two rooms and the garage were below 15 μg/100cm2 – the level considered by the tribunal to endanger health.
“At levels of 32, 35, 48, 49, 73 and 95μg/100cm2, the contamination meant the premises were so seriously damaged as to be uninhabitable,” Greene said.
Gamble says he also found a meth pipe, a quantity of meth and cannabis offcuts at the flat, which he referred to the police.
Quartermain’s mother also claimed her daughter was not given a property inspection report at the start of the one-year fixed term tenancy but Gamble showed a report signed by both him and the tenant at the beginning of the tenancy, recording various damage and defects.
Quartermain’s mother also said the landlord wrongly terminated the tenancy because it was fixed term. However, Greene says Gamble could issue a seven-day notice to terminate the tenancy, whether a fixed term or periodic tenancy, if the premises had been destroyed or were so seriously damaged as to be uninhabitable.
“The methamphetamine contamination arose as an intentional act. Using drugs – the report suggests possible manufacture to produce such high levels of contamination – is not a careless act, it is an intentional act. While the landlord’s claim is not limited to the insurance excess or four weeks’ rent, he has just claimed the excess of $2,500 and the tribunal awards that.”
After receiving the methamphetamine test report, the landlord on March 23 gave Quartermain seven days to get out of the flat but she did not leave until 7 May. After she left, Gamble applied to the tribunal for rent arrears, compensation and the bond.
At the end of July, Greene issued timetabling directions for the filing of evidence and submissions for the rest of Gamble’s claim, but neither Gamble nor Quartermain took any notice. A further hearing had to be scheduled for August.
At 11.41pm on the night before the hearing, Quartermain’s mother emailed a substantial document to Greene, saying it was her daughter’s defence. Included was a counter-claim for $77,780.50. There was no mention in the application of a claim against the landlord. She was told (repeatedly) that it could not be heard as it had not been filed with the tribunal and a filing fee had not been paid.
“Her intransigence on this point was discourteous to the tribunal,” Greene says. “She would not be guided. Filing the counterclaim a few hours before the scheduled hearing is an abuse of process.”
The tribunal told Quartermain’s mother that as she was not the tenant, she could not file a claim against the landlord, but her daughter could make an application and pay the filing fee. Any claim for costs could not be heard until she did that.
The remainder of Gamble’s claims against Quartermain were successful. She has to pay him $5484.93 for rent arrears and for repairing damage to the kitchen floor caused by a dog, holes in the master bedroom and front door frame after Quartermain installed a digital front lock for protection without the landlord’s consent, skip hire, replacing a council rubbish bin, lock and key replacement, cleaning oil off the driveway, the landlord’s labour for removing rubbish and a structure built for cats in the backyard, replacing meth-contaminated smoke alarms and the insurance excess for meth contamination.
Sally Lindsay is an Auckland journalist specialising in property.
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