PHOTO: The boarding house, photographed in December, five months after it was shut down. LAWRENCE SMITH/STUFF

According to STUFF an illegal boarding house was declared a “dangerous building” and shut down by Auckland Council, five months after a young woman says she was raped in her room by a fellow tenant.

Fergs Coffee

Sarah* told Stuff in February she had nowhere to live and was given the address of the boarding house by her Work and Income case officer.

When she arrived at the large two-story building in Takapuna, she found she was the only female tenant and a group of men were drinking in the communal lounge outside her bedroom.

Sarah says she told her Work and Income case officer she felt unsafe. But instead of being given alternative accommodation, the case officer told her to go to the beach.

Nadene Lomu

Profile YOU! – FOR 12 MONTHS | ONLY $499 plus GST

She later found the lock on the shared bathroom didn’t work and there was a gap around her bedroom door.

Within 36 hours of moving in, Sarah was raped in her bedroom by a fellow tenant.

Five months later, a fire safety report found the house failed to meet fire alarm and evacuation regulations and an Auckland Council building inspector ordered the building’s owner to evict the tenants.

Sarah took this video of the bathroom on her first day at the hostel. It shows the lock on the shared bathroom door does not work.

Auckland Council documents released to Stuff under the Official Information Act show council inspectors found the three-bedroom home had been converted to a 10-room boarding house with capacity for up to 20 people.

Showers had been installed in some of the rooms without consent and naked wiring could be seen hanging from the ceilings. Photographs taken by council inspectors also show exposed plumbing running across the hallway ceiling.

Auckland Council’s manager of licensing and regulatory compliance, Mervyn Chetty, said making people homeless in a housing crisis is a “last resort”.

At the same time, council and Fire and Emergency documents showed serious breaches of safety codes.

The documents show the council had received complaints about the Takapuna property since 2017.

MOST POPULAR