Yesterday, this programme debated Phil Twyford’s proposed rental housing standards. The rental housing warrant of fitness if you will. New rules that will specify the minimum amount of heating, insulation, ventilation, draughts and moisture in a rental property.

It’s fair to say it got pretty heated, unlike many rental homes, with landlords complaining about two things. One is the cost of compliance and the other was how hard the rental game is with so many irresponsible tenants.

Whether it was a true reflection of the state of New Zealand or not is debatable.  One texter called the day “the rich landlord’s whinging programme while the tenants are at work” and that’s a fair criticism as tenants are often working and not phoning talkback programmes at 2 pm. There were also a number of landlords who said their properties already comply and their tenants are lovely and so they couldn’t see any problem.

But that said it was a terrible litany of abuse of homes. Walls smashed, pet’s urine everywhere, house loads of carpets being replace.  One landlord who had installed heating found that when his tenants left they took the heaters off the wall and with them. One even complained that departing tenants had taken all the batteries out of the smoke alarm. There is a significant minority who have no respect for property owners rights. Unfortunately many of this minority are at the lower end of society in terms of income and criminality and the ones most in need of rental houses for shelter.

Then there are the incompetents. The ones who don’t know how to clean or do the most basic maintenance. The ones who don’t understand the need to ventilate and end out growing their own black mould in perfectly fine houses. But if they complain the blame is never to them but the landlord.

There was a procession of landlords who have said they’ve had enough and they’re preparing to either sell or hold for capital gain but not to rent.

This may be a boon for some first home-buyers but for those who will never afford to buy a house it means decreasing rental stock and even more chance that you’ll end out in a car or a garage with your family.

New Zealand’s housing stock is an embarrassment, particularly the rental properties. Generations of corner cutting and cost saving has resulted in properties that would never be acceptable in other countries.  So you can understand the government’s desire to see the standard lifted. But the narrative has been skewed. Yes we have slum lords ripping off the vulnerable but equally we have tenants who are running roughshod over their landlord’s rights.

I had a number of emails after the show commenting that the Tenancy Tribunal is automatically biased against landlords the way the family court is biased towards women and that needs to change.  I had suggestions such as a nationwide rental insurance scheme to counter the erosion of value caused by negligent tenants.

My overall feeling at the end of it is that the government’s discussion about lifting our rental stock quality has focused purely on the landlords. They would do well to address the issues of the feral tenants as well. Or they may find themselves with a mass exodus of landlords resulting in even worse slums than we have now.