A visit from David Collings

Tonight I meet with David Collings at our old Bucklands Beach Road residence as we will be handing the keys over to Housing New Zealand tomorrow at 2PM and will no longer have access to the place.

I contacted Mr Collings as we felt that its all very well having Photos of the mould and various problems within the house that we have been living with for the 10 years we have been there but these do not describe dampness and smell in the house caused by the mould.

Mr Collings has agreed to be witness to the smell and other problems encountered and his testimony will only go to further solidify our claims that we were being forced to live in a sub standard house with little regard for our health and the safety of our children.

It is clear the Housing New Zealand believe that this house is according to them acceptable however I can guarantee that they will completely revamp it before it is given to any one else.

I am still very concerned as to what the long term exposure to the mould spores and the toxins in the house are going to be on both myself and my family and given that I was suffering from nose bleeds every morning however after having left have not had one instance its pretty clear that something nasty has been going on.

I am still finding myself short of breath but hope that over time this will get better.

Mould is Mould

I think it is pretty clear that the HNZ house we have been living in has quite a bit of mould that has been caused by the flooding under the house creating a damp environment. The mould is not just on the walls and ceiling but is also in the new underfloor insulation recently installed.

Now I was under the impression that i only had to worry if the mould was Stachybotrys but it turns out that this is not the case and that I had been feed a bit of a red hearing. Mould is Mould and although Stachybotrys produce toxic compounds all moulds should be treated the same according to OSH, and from the CDC's website in the US its pretty clear that any mould can pose a health risk.

http://www.level.org.nz/health-and-safety/mould/
http://www.cdc.gov/mold/stachy.htm#Q7

While living in this house every morning I would wake with a blood nose, problems breathing and quite often it would feel like I was breathing with a plastic bag over my head and something sitting on my chest. I would often after waking be pretty lethargic and my motivation over the last 3 years had pretty much vanished. In addition to all this I was diagnosed with a Petty high level of depression.

Now according to Housing New Zealand this house is acceptable to them.

Its only been a week in the new place we have moved to and I have not had one blood nose other than the first night here and not had one headache. I am hoping that breathing gets a little better and some of the other issues sort themselves out in the near future.

I will be sure to take some recent photos of the mould and publish these before we hand over the house.

Moving House

We have almost finished moving from the HNZ house to our private rental, finally by daily blood noses and headache seem to have stopped and there seems to be a dramatic improvement to the rest of the family even over such a short time. No more coughing and spluttering during the night. With all the furniture moved out its possible to see what we have been living with. Deep in the carpet is a white fungal growth under our bed in the master bedroom. The walls behind the furniture have quite a bit of mould on them and there is a distinctive damp smell in the house that was being absorbed by our clothing and furniture but how has nowhere to go and just lingers.

I invite anyone who is interested in seeing the condition of the house to contact me for a viewing, I have a journalist from a news paper meeting me at the house on Thursday evening however we will more than likely retain access to the house up until mid next week as there is some work to do outside with tidying up what we were told could not be stored under the house and disassembling the work bench and shelving in the garage.

It should be kept in mind that according the HNZ this house is fine given the age and character and our continued requests to get these matters resolved over 7 or so years were pretty much ignored. One of my only concerns at this stage however is what the long term health effect are going to be.

In order to gain access and look for yourself fire me a text to 021 212-9200 or phone me.

More Flooding under the house

As HNZ have evicted us this is not going to be our problem for much longer but even after 7 years and despite us paying for an independent expert to take a look at the problem HNZ and the courts ordering HNZ to fix the problem they have still failed to do so.

Last night it rained and although it sounded pretty heavy this morning I took a look at one of the local weather sites. I have also put a call in to NIWA so as to get the official records.

The second to last photo shows the water is nearly 20mm deep.

In the last photo the orange paint was put there by the builders who came in to put some cement around the foundations as water had been tracking under them. The area to the right had been excavated and used to fill up with water so HNZ told the builders to just fill it with dirt. You can see that the dirt is becoming pretty damp and the discolouration of the paint is being caused by the water underneath.

A few repairs

This morning my wife received a call from a company who was being set out to look at the windows and why they don't close correctly. He was only sent to repair one window however decided to look at the others as well. The curvature in the aluminium extrusion was not repairable and as he stated the only way to fix this is to replace the frame. The best he could do was to ensure the window catches pull the window tight into the seal as best as possible.

A piece of aluminium was cut and screwed to the frame so as to allow the catch strike it and pull the outer frame in to the inner frame. The curvature of the frame still prevents the window from closing correctly however it is a lot better than it was previously.

The same was done on several other windows and one in the lounge had new catches fitted. However that one now has the top of the window pulling outward from the frame.

The contractor seemed to think that the reason the windows have bowed is because of the lateral movement in the house however he has never seen this before. I then showed him a window that has cracked in the corner and is behind the couch in the living room. It looks like the frame has moved sideways causing the window to flex and crack.

He voiced his concern as apparently any windows at that height should have been replaced by safety glass and eh stated that we were lucky that we had something over the window. I then showed him a window that was replaced around 4 or 5 years ago and he stated that at that time it really should have been replaced by law with safety glass as it is below a specific height.

The contractor finished up his work and stated he would make notes of the cracked glass, safety glass and problem with the frames.

I did not get to examine the work before he left however after taking a look was surprised that he had not cleaned up after himself and had left aluminium turnings in the window channel, on the window sill and on the floor.

Flooding under the house

If the water under the house were any deeper Council would require a fence around it.

But seriously we have been battling with this one for some 7 years and I'm sure this is the cause of many of the other problems. We have had contractor after contractor looking at the problem and still the problem has not been resolved.

On Monday a contractor from Spotless turned up with a builder stating that the way to resolve the problem was to put a drain in the front of the house and divert the water flow, this is pretty much the same conclusion as was given by the expert we hired prior to going to the Tenancy Tribunal.

However Housing New Zealand seem insistent on just filing up the hole, It seems to be the way they opperate and instead of fixing the issue they just hide it. These problems don't just go away if you cover them up.

Then today the person who came over from Spotless arrived to examine the window sill and was also asked to look at under the house. His comments intrigued me as he was of the view that Housing New Zealand wanted to just fill the hole up and concrete over the top. I don't have a problem with that and in all honesty gives me more storage space BUT the issue of flooding is not likely to be resolved by doing this.

Cement that has such a heavy flow of water under it is likely to be compromised as the water will wash away the sediment under it, in addition the cement unless sealed will just absorb the water and although you may not see the ponding the water will still evaporate much like water in a sponge.

Here are a few photos of the flooding we have been living with under the house.
The last image is of the underfloor insulation that was installed only around 6 months ago and is already showing signs of mold growth as well as rusty staples.