If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.
Was having a conversation like this last night with a friend.
Essentially the suggestion was that there should be a basic standard of rental, including heat source as, I'm told 20% of people in chch's east cant afford to rent a house with a heat source (done it myself for the last 2 years, not the end of the world but cut my cloth accordingly).
When I asked how they're then expected to pay for the obvious increase in electricity bill if they can scarcely afford the house- 'well, that's another problem'
For me, I just can't understand why it's always somebody else's problem and not the person directly affected. No one forces anyone to rent a particular house, we're all free to choose where we spend our dollars.
A cold and damp Housing New Zealand home contributed to the death of a toddler from bronchopneumonia, a coroner has found.
because they are very, very different
and herald writers shouldn't be misquoting the coroner
Yep and the editorial piece version has all the commenters riled up and jumping on the bandwagon. I'm sure I've said this before, but when I was examining state houses a year or two ago, I saw a lot of cold, damp and mouldy ones. But in nine out of ten cases, it wasn't the fault of the house but the people living in them.
Yet the public falls for it, hook, line and sinker. One person commented that we landlords shouldn't complain about the cost and we should just do it (i.e. upgrade our properties) because these houses kill people.
A cold and damp Housing New Zealand home contributed to the death of a toddler from bronchopneumonia, a coroner has found.
because they are very, very different
and herald writers shouldn't be misquoting the coroner
It's not really a misquote. The coroner's report also includes the words "I am of the view the condition of the house at the time being cold and damp during the winter months was a contributing factor to Emma-Lita's health status."
The bit that they've possibly got wrong is using the word "found", as the sentence above is in the comments section of the report rather than the formal findings.
eri, you're not really arguing terribly well there.
We can't ban winter. We would if we could. It's a false analogy.
Leaving a child in a locked car in summer is also a false analogy, because it's easy and inexpensive to not leave a child in a locked car. When it happens, it's generally due to tragic sleep-deprivation-induced forgetfulness. Children dying of heat stroke in cars is not society's fault because there's nothing society could have done to prevent it.
In this case, the family would have dearly loved to have had a warmer home, but the house was cold and damp (and therefore hard to heat), and therefore the family could not afford to heat it. The fact HNZ is now doing remedial work on the property to bring it up to their standards clearly shows it didn't meet their standards when the Bourne's were living in it.
I read somewhere, related to this saga, that the house was actually insulated.
The phrase: "I am of the view the condition of the house at the time being cold and damp during the winter months was a contributing factor to Emma-Lita's health status" does not actually appear to be blaming the house itself, taken on its own. It is vague and does not address the reason/s for the house being in said condition, i.e a fault with the house itself, or a fault with a lack of heating and ventilation. So the point remains about the Herald writer's wilful interpretation to make it mean what they wanted it to mean.
HNZ general manager of tenancy services Kay Read said within four days of
the family being prioritised they were offered another home by HNZ that met
their needs. However, the family declined to take the house offered in December
and waited until April this year to move to a four-bedroom home in Otara.
HNZ gave the family a heater but the high electricity costs made it
impossible to use within the family's budget: Coroner's report.
Those greedy power and lines companies and their shareholders!!
Six children is no easy task to manage on a budget.
Green co-leader Metiria Turei said that giving a family like that a heater and
even expecting them to pay the power bill is simply ridiculous.
HNZ should've offered to pay their electricity bill, as well, it seems.
Comment