Left to clean up meth rental disaster

Seven months after leaving a highly contaminated methamphetamine rental in Tauranga, a family is living in limbo.

Ngere and Ryan Paul have yet to decide whether to take legal action to cover damages, including possessions left behind at the property.

The former meth lab, where the parents lived with their three children, was discovered to be 560 times over the Ministry of Health’s guideline for contaminated homes requiring remediation.

“The only option was to leave their possessions behind,” said MethSafe owner Jessica Hall.

The family left behind furniture, appliances, clothing and food. All Ms Paul could retrieve were some treasured family items.

Electric Kiwi and Harvey Norman donated whiteware for a Story segment on the family’s insurance battles.

Although the Pauls had AA Insurance coverage for $104,000 worth of contents, they received $30,000 as a goodwill gesture, as meth contamination was not covered in the fine print.

To add to their woes, the Paul family is grieving the recent death of their grandfather, Tai Sadaraka.

The family moved to a temporary rental 40 minutes’ drive from town, but found another property in Tauranga five weeks ago.

The cost of moving was covered by around $2000 raised by a Givealittle page MethSafe set up.

The landlord is yet to have the property cleaned, which he said will cost around $300,000.

He said he has been involved in ongoing insurance battles with Tower Insurance, who asked for a review of an Ombudsman ruling, which is due for completion in October.

“Delays are causing pressure in all sorts of ways on our family,” said the landlord, who declined to be named. He told Te Waha Nui he has had to take a second job in order to survive financially.

“We’ve had no rent since January and are still paying the mortgage.”

NZ Police have apologised to both families, because an eight-month delay in police lab results meant the council never knew to red flag the property.

“We have since written to all parties and have apologised for our error,” wrote Detective Senior Sergeant John Brunton, manager of national clandestine lab response, in a statement earlier this year.

The Paul family’s lawyer has warned that taking legal action will be a draining process.

“We don’t have any energy left to drain anyway,” said Ms Paul. “We’ve been hit with so much this year …. Really what we wanted was justice.”