Published tribunal order
Tenancy Tribunal case 5440330 — Cleanliness
Decided 10 Jun 2026 · Published 10 Jun 2026 · Application 5440330
- Cleanliness
Party names are redacted in the official published order.
Order
- An application for suppression has been made in this case, and the Tribunal orders suppression of the Tenant’s name and identifying details.
- Finest Property Management Limited As Agent For Gagandeep Singh And Navneet Kaur must pay [The tenant/s] $718.00 immediately, calculated as shown in table below: a. The landlord must carry out the following work to the premises, which must be completed by 5 June 2026 b. Remove all rubbish from around the property, including old building materials. c. As an alternative to compliance with Order 2, the landlord must pay the tenant $500 immediately. d. If the landlord fails to comply with either Order 2 or 3 above, then the tenant may undertake the work and charge the landlord the costs of this work up to $500.00 These costs may be set off against rent payable.
Reasons
- Both parties attended the hearing held on the 29 April 2026.
- This is a dispute about the condition that the landlord gave the property to the tenant in.
- The tenant claims that the landlord failed to provide the property in a reasonably clean and tidy condition and in particular left rubbish under the house and rubbish strewn around the exterior that included food scraps and food packing scraps. The tenant also claims that there are rodents at the property and that a day after she moved in, the ceiling of a storage cabin on the deck of the property (which is very close to the house) collapsed revealing a large rats’ nest.
- The tenant says that the condition of the property together with the large rats’ nest made her feel like the property was dirty and unhygienic. She said that she did not want to prepare meals or for her or her children to eat at the property.
- The tenant accepts that the landlord has come and cleaned the items that she queried inside the property, has removed the rats’ nest and the broken ceiling has cleaned up under the deck, but she says that the landlord has still not removed all of the rubbish around the property. The tenant seeks a work order that the landlord come and remove the rubbish and two weeks rent as compensation for the condition that the property was provided to her.
- The landlord says:
- that it has rented out the property in a reasonable condition and has removed items pointed out by the tenant.
- That the remaining items that the tenant says are rubbish were functional; for instance, timber left at the property was ‘plugging’ a gap under the fence to stop the neighbour’s dogs getting through, or do not need to be removed (such as a small pile of old concrete).
- Despite considering that the landlord had provided the property to the tenant in a reasonably clean and tidy condition, it still went at its own cost and had its cleaner’s clean areas of concern for the tenant such as the stove, rangehood and walls. The landlord said it also had its maintenance person clean up coffee capsules and food wrappers that were under the back deck but says that this deck is low to the ground, and it is difficult to reach.
- That the rat’s nest in the storage cabin was only discovered the day after the tenant moved in and the landlord immediately cleaned it, repaired the ceiling and arranged for its pest control people to lay bait.
- When it arranged to meet with the tenant to identify further areas of concern with the tenant but that the tenant failed to show up for that meeting. The law
- Section 45(1)(a) requires the landlord to provide the premises in a reasonable state of cleanliness.
- The premises includes the lawns and gardens. 1
- Reasonably clean means clean to the standard an average, reasonable bystander would consider reasonable 2 , not commercially clean 3 , spotless hotel or motel standard. 4
- What is reasonably clean, and tidy is an “objective assessment to be made after consideration of all of the evidence” Ace Property Management Ltd v Owens DC Wellington CIV -2008-085-1441,17 December 2008.
- What is reasonably clean is subjective- people have different standards of cleanliness that they would be prepared to live in. However, the Tribunal must take an objective assessment. The Tribunal is asked to deal with claims of ‘what is reasonably clean’ daily.
- Both parties provided me with photographs of the condition of the property taken at the beginning of the tenancy.
- The landlord conducted an inspection on the 16 January, which was the same day that the tenant moved in. The landlord says that due to the short turnaround between tenancies, (one day) that was the only time that that the they could conduct an inspection and that as they found the property reasonably clean and tidy they did not do any work on the property between tenancies. The landlord provided the Tribunal with the photographs and inspection report.
- Whilst the inspection report shows a property that is mostly reasonably clean and tidy and free from rubbish, I am not satisfied that all the property was 1 See s45 (5)RTA and the definitions of premises and facilities. 2 Housing New Zealand v Holloway TT Auckland TT215/93, 8 February 1993 at 8. 3 Mills v Kiwi Property Care Ltd TT Hamilton 09/01418/HN, 27 July 2009. 4 Richards v Scully TT Christchurch TT2043/98, 21 July 1998. reasonably clean and tidy and free from rubbish I say this for the following reasons:
- The photographs and description of the outside area in the inspection report show an exterior with rubbish left around the property, particularly down the side of the garage. The inspection report record “timber loose from iron fence fell “Odds and sodds bits of loose rubbish around the garage area from the water flow, old hose and box to be removed, underneath balcony minor odd pieces of rubbish mainly coffee capsules.” It is clear that the landlord considered that these matters should have been attended to by the outgoing tenants.
- The inside of the stove in the property looks unclean.
- The rubbish bins were left full or partially used.
- There was evidence of the large rats nest in the storage area (a cabin on the deck very close to the house) there is droppings on the floor and the ceiling is visibly sagging- the report notes that maintenance is required to investigate the cause of the sagging. If that maintenance had been done before the tenancy began, as it should have been, the landlord would have discovered the large rats nest.
- The previous tenants accepted that they had thrown coffee capsules under the deck to deter feral cats.
- The tenant has collected in a pile since the cleaners have been to the property, a significant amount of rubbish from around the property, a lot of food wrappers and food items have been collected, this would have contributed to the rat problem.
What is the remedy?
- The landlord has already cleaned up the rats’ nest, laid bait, and sent cleaners to the property to do some cleaning such as the stove.
- There is still some ‘rubbish’ at the property that the tenant has collected. The landlord should dispose of that rubbish.
- Work order
- Under section 45(1)(a) - (ca) Residential Tenancies Act 1986, the landlord has an obligation to provide and maintain certain standards and to comply with applicable requirements.
- Where the Tribunal finds the landlord has failed to comply with any of these obligations, it may make an order for the landlord to carry out the work. See section 78(1)(e) Residential Tenancies Act 1986.
- If the work order is not being made by consent of both parties, the Tribunal must also make a monetary order as an alternative to compliance with the work order.
- A work order may also authorise the tenant to undertake the work and charge the landlord the costs of doing the work, if the landlord should fail to comply with the work order and alternative monetary order. A monetary limit must be imposed by the Tribunal on the amount of costs that can be charged. These costs can be set off by the tenant against rent payable. See sections 78(2AAB) and 78(2AAC)(b) Residential Tenancies Act 1986. Compensation
- I also award the tenant $690 (one weeks rent) in compensation this amount takes into account:
- When a tenant moves into the property, they should be able to do so knowing that the property is reasonably clean and tidy. Whilst some tenants may wish to do additional cleaning to bring the property up to their living standards, this should neither be expected or the norm. Tenants should expect that the property is in such a condition that they can move in straight away and start cooking and using the property.
- The award reflects the inconvenience stress and disgust experienced by the tenant, especially once the large rats’ nest was discovered. That combined with the rubbish strewn around the exterior would have given any tenant a cause for concern about how hygienic and safe the property was. I consider that any tenant who had a large rats nest fall from the ceiling in any part of their home, whether that area was used for storage or not, would want additional cleaning done to put their mind at ease.
- That the landlord paid for some commercial cleaning and rubbish removal. Filing fee and name suppression.
- As the tenant has been successful in her claim, I award her the filing fee and grant her name suppression as requested