Ant infestation 'probably' should have been dealt with sooner, says HNZ

Monday, 5 February 2018

Housing NZ has provided one of its Blenheim tenants with bait to deal with an ant infestation.

An ant infestation at a Housing New Zealand home has left a solo mother in Blenheim frustrated she wasn't made aware of the problem before moving in.

Mother-of-two Fillippa Haigh moved from Christchurch to Blenheim in December and spotted the ant problem almost immediately after moving into the house.

Haigh said she didn't get to inspect the Housing New Zealand house before she moved in but guessed there were 'thousands' of ants crawling around the home.

Fillippa Haigh was 'horrified' by the number of ants in her Housing NZ home.

'I was pretty horrified to be honest,' she said.

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The ants will hopefully carry the bait back to the nest.

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Haigh said the ants were making their way into the kitchen cupboards, dining room, and even the bath tub.

Ants are crawling up the side of the house, getting into the kitchen and even the bath tub.

She had tried getting rid of the ants herself by washing them out with water, baiting them with sugar, corn flour and chili powder and even fly spray.

'I went through two cans of fly spray the other day to try and get rid of them from the kitchen,' she said.

The thought of having a shower is uninviting with the ants.

Haigh said she was surprised Housing New Zealand was able to rent out properties in that condition.

'I'm more concerned that they are renting these places out knowing there are problems with them,' she said.

She said she contacted Housing New Zealand between Christmas and New Year but had to follow up with them to find out what was happening.

Haigh said she was contacted by an exterminator last week who told her he would come around and fumigate her home mid-February.

'I found out through an exterminator a month later that my house was going to be fumigated,' she said.

Haigh said the contractor told her it wasn't the first time he had been to the property to fumigate it.

However, Housing New Zealand area manager Dale Bradley said the maintenance records for the past five years showed no previous requests or jobs logged for ant removal at the property.

Bradley said a contractor went to Haigh's property on Friday night and gave her bait to put down for the ants.

He said baited traps were the 'most appropriate way to solve this problem,' and said Haigh was 'happy with this'.

Bradley said if the ant problem recurred Haigh had the option of fumigation within the first three months of her tenancy.

The job 'probably' should have been logged as urgent and dealt with sooner, he said.

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