New analysis confirms what residents have long suspected: Wellington is substantially mouldier and damper than other New Zealand cities. “My flat had holes in the walls, letting slugs in to roam freely over my shoes and into the shower,” says Zoë Vaunois, a student at Victoria University of Wellington. “Similar holes also let spiders in … Read more
After a bite of schnitzel sends her running to the toilet, Julie Hill dives into the murky world of Britain’s favourite meat substitute. It was late in the evening and my stomach was empty. I was on my way home after a slightly depressing trip to the hospital, hungry but too weary to cook from … Read more
The government today announced a raft of measures aimed at making rental homes warmer, drier and healthier. If there’s one thing tenants enjoy more than totting up how much of their wages are going to fund an extension to their landlord’s Waiheke holiday home, it’s enumerating all the highly specific ways in which their own … Read more
Ethan Donnell, director of Sick Homes, the latest in the Frame documentary series produced for the Spinoff by Wrestler and funded by NZ on Air, describes the people he met, and the reality of the places they live Once a week, Brett Johnson takes apart the small machine that pumps air through a mask and … Read more
Dr Lance O’Sullivan has issued a challenge to Phil Twyford after concluding state housing is a direct cause of kids becoming chronically ill. I recently moved from Northland to Auckland and coming from there I thought I knew what poverty was. On my second day of working as a GP here in Auckland I was … Read more
KiwiBuild is the perfect opportunity to drag up our pathetic building standards, argues the head of the NZ Green Building Council. We all have a home. It might not be the place that you hunker down each night, but we all have a place we know of as home. A home should be a sanctuary, … Read more
Mould is one of the biggest health risks associated with New Zealand’s substandard housing stock. But since landlords seem averse to doing anything about the problem, Madeleine Chapman came up with an easy workaround. This story was published in June 2018. Earlier this week, nine students reached a confidential settlement agreement with their landlord following … Read more
We will also test Housing NZ properties for traces of students, pets and bad vibes, reveals our proud CEO (Boiler Suits Division) Alex Braae The report into the pointlessness of testing houses for meth contamination has come at a very bad time for The Spinoff. All those stories about how if one hit was taken … Read more