Published tribunal order
Tenancy Tribunal case 5302340 — Cleanliness at 89 Waikawa Road, Picton, Picton 7220
Decided 7 Oct 2025 · Published 7 Oct 2025 · Application 5302340
- Cleanliness
- Rent arrears
Order
- [The tenant/s] tenant/s] and [The tenant/s] tenant/s] are to pay B&N Properties Limited As Agent For T & J Warwick $599.82 from the total bond of $2,320.00, calculated as shown in table below.
- The Bond Centre has paid $80.71 from the bond to the landlord and $1,720.18 from the bond to the tenants pursuant to a Mediator’s Order for Bond Refund dated 12 August 2025. The Bond Centre is to pay the balance of the bond remaining from the total bond of $2,320.00 (6539166-005), which is $519.11, to the landlord, immediately.
- All other claims are dismissed.
Reasons
- Ms Horncastle and Ms Richards-Gardiner, representing the landlord, and Ms Voloshina, representing the tenants, all attended the video conference hearing.
- The landlord has applied for rent arrears, compensation and reimbursement of the filing fee.
- The tenant has cross applied for refund of the bond and reimbursement of the filing fee.
- The parties confirmed they reached agreement in mediation where the tenant agreed to pay the landlord $80.71 from the bond, being rent arrears to the end of the tenancy, which was on 21 June 2025. The parties had also agreed in mediation that $1,720.18 from the bond was to be paid to the tenant, with the remaining bond balance of $519.11 to remain at the Bond Centre pending determination of the landlord’s compensation claim. The mediator requested that the Tribunal deals with all claims in this Order. The parties confirmed they had already received the bond amounts outlined in this paragraph.
- The parties acknowledged that the only remaining issue to be determined between them from the tenancy was whether the tenant is liable for the cost of professional carpet cleaning carried out by the landlord in the amount of $519.11.
Did the tenant comply with their obligations at the end of the tenancy?
- At the end of the tenancy the tenant must leave the premises reasonably clean and tidy, remove all rubbish, return all keys and security devices, and leave all chattels provided for their benefit. See section 40(1)(e)(ii)-(v) Residential Tenancies Act 1986.
- The landlord said the tenant did not leave the premises reasonably clean and tidy, as the carpet had to be cleaned and deodorised again to bring it to an acceptable standard of reasonably clean and tidy.
- The landlord provided an invoice for $519.11 dated 27 June 2025 for vacuuming, steam cleaning and deodorising of the carpet at the end of the tenancy, along with travel involved for the carpet cleaner.
- The tenant said they were happy to agree to pay for the deodorising of the carpet, even though they had also deodorised the carpet themselves, and to cover the travel of the carpet cleaner but not for the other items on the landlord’s carpet cleaning invoice. The tenant did not believe they should have to pay twice for professional carpet cleaning, as they had also paid for their own carpet cleaner.
- The tenant said that they moved most of their belongings out of the property by the night of 20 June 2025, but returned to the property on 21 June 2025 to remove any remaining items, have their professional carpet cleaner come to work at the property that day, and then check through the property to ensure it was left clean and tidy. The tenant said their professional carpet cleaner finished at around 11am and the tenant then took videos of the condition of the property then, which were provided in the tenant’s application. The tenant’s videos show the property was left reasonably clean and tidy. In the videos, which were not close-ups of the carpets, the carpets appeared to be reasonably clean and tidy. The tenant acknowledged they had a dog at the property with them.
- The landlord said they went to the property to do the final inspection on Monday 23 June 2025 in the morning. The property manager said she smelled a dog odour when she first came into the property. The property manager said she was called away to another job and so then returned to the property around 2 hours later the same day to complete the final inspection. The property manager said she noticed what she believed were dog hairs in the carpets, which turned into clumps of hair/fur/fibres when she used her foot to try and lift them. She said they stuck to her black trousers also when she kneeled. These clumps were a white/cream colour and were made up of longer hairs or fibres. The property manager said she touched and smelled these clumps and said she was 99% sure they were dog hair. The landlord provided photographs of these clumps of hair that were apparently found on the carpet in the lounge and hallway and in one of the bedrooms. The landlord was clear that the property was locked after the tenants left the property on 21 June 2025, and said the property manager was the first person to enter the property after the tenants left.
- The landlord acknowledged the tenant had had the carpets professionally cleaned but said their cleaner did not clean the carpet to an acceptable standard. They said the tenant’s videos taken before they left did not show close up photographs of the carpet’s condition so the fibres or hairs that ended up in clumps would not have been seen in these videos.
- The tenant said the clumps of hair or fibres shown in the landlord’s final inspection photographs were not the same as their dog’s hairs. They acknowledged their dog has a white and pale colour fur and provided a photograph of their dog showing this. However, the tenant said their dog is an American cocker spaniel and does not have long hairs, such as are shown in the landlord’s final inspection photographs.
- The tenant said they were not given the opportunity to rectify the carpet situation, which the landlord disputed.
- The tenant is responsible for leaving the property reasonably clean and tidy. The tenant paid for a professional carpet cleaner and provided videos, not close-up, of the property and carpets after their cleaner had carried out the services on the carpet, in which the carpets looked clean and tidy. The landlord attended the property only 2 days later, with the property locked in the meantime and no other person entering the property before the property manager on 23 June 2025. The property manager’s evidence was that there was a strong dog smell in the property when she first went in and the landlord provided photographs of the clumps of hair, fur or fibres that the property manager said she found intertwined in the carpet that came into clumps with her foot and went onto her black trousers. These clumps were throughout the main living areas of the property, as per the photographs provided.
- Whilst the parties disputed whether the clumps were dog hair, fur or fibres, the landlord’s photographs show there were a number of these clumps of fibres, whatever these clumps were made of, that had to be cleaned again by the landlord. As such, the clumps would have needed to have been vacuumed, and I find the steam cleaning and deodorising would also have been reasonable, given the dog odour smelled by the property manager on entry. To be clear, the issue here is that there were clumps of hair or fibres that had to be cleaned up at the end of the tenancy, which would be the case whether the clumps were dog hair or fibres of another substance.
- As it is the tenant’s responsibility to leave the property in a reasonably clean and tidy condition, it is the tenant’s responsibility to pay for the clumps of fibres on the carpet to be cleaned up, given it would be unlikely that these clumps of fibres or hairs were caused by the landlord, given the evidence.
- As such, the tenant is to pay the landlord’s claim for vacuuming, steam cleaning and deodorising the carpet in the amount of $519.11. The tenant can take up the issue of whether their carpet cleaner provided the services adequately, directly with their own carpet cleaner.
How much is owed for rent?
- The tenants agreed they owed $80.71 in rent arrears to 21 June 2025 to the landlord, and that this has already been paid to the landlord from the bond. Refund of the bond
- The Bond Centre has paid $80.71 from the bond to the landlord and $1,720.18 from the bond to the tenants, pursuant to a Mediator’s Order for Bond Refund dated 12 August 2025.
- The Bond Centre is to pay the balance of the bond remaining from the total bond of $2,320.00 (6539166-005), which is $519.11, to the landlord, immediately. Filing fee
- As both parties have had some success with the bond refund matter, I do not reimburse the filing fee to either party but dismiss these respective filing fee claims of both parties.