They looked great on paper. Polite. Passionate about animals. Charming, even. They spoke kindly. Said they were grateful for the opportunity to live in my home and run their small business. They even told me my dog would always be welcome. On the surface, they seemed like ideal tenants — warm, responsible, committed. But behind that carefully crafted image was a very different reality. Rent wasn’t paid — not for weeks, then months. The property was used for purposes never agreed to. Requests were ignored. Agreements were broken. And when I finally asked them to pay what they To View More >>

People often say, “You poor thing—those tenants are terrible!” Because, regardless of how bad your tenants are—how dishonest, how manipulative, how brazenly criminal—they’ve been handed the ultimate weapon: a tenancy system that gives them time, sympathy, and loopholes, while landlords are left bleeding. They can stop paying rent for weeks or months. They can promise to leave, then change their minds at the last minute. They can use your home as a business, kennel, dump, or drug lab. And when you finally get to Tribunal—after jumping through every procedural To View More >>

Ah, the joys of being a landlord in New Zealand. Where every week is a new episode of “You Just Can’t Make This Stuff Up.” Meet Crystal (no pun intended, but fitting, you’ll see why) and her boyfriend Dylan—young, sweet, and utterly clueless. They rented my house, and things were fine… until Uncle Meth moved in. Yep, turns out Uncle had a bit of a P habit, and soon enough, so did my house. I did the responsible thing: tested the property, confirmed contamination, and sadly had to ask Crystal and Dylan to leave. To their credit, they didn’t trash the place, To View More >>

Being a landlord in New Zealand is not what you think it is. You might imagine someone sipping flat whites in a linen shirt, checking their online banking while tenants magically pay rent on time and houses stay miraculously intact. I wish. The reality? Let’s just say I’ve seen more broken promises than a reality TV reunion episode—and none of it makes for good dinner party conversation. Over the years, I’ve managed everything from tidy family homes to commercial spaces filled with even less tidy stories. I’ve scrubbed floors I didn’t dirty, forked out thousands To View More >>