An Edinburgh Realty tenant was left feeling “infuriated” after a tradie unlocked her bedroom door to complete some repairs while she was asleep.
Marie* rents in the Station Apartments complex, a set of 5 studio apartments on Anzac Avenue managed by Edinburgh Realty. At first glance, $250 per week for a fully-furnished studio room in the centre of town seems like a decent enough deal. However, Jessica said her room has been giving her grief all year, beginning with a filthy ex-tenant who left her a pleasant welcoming present: “a fly infestation that took me ages to get rid of.” It only got worse from there, said Marie, whose issues included “a broken front door, a leaking sink, and a microwave that caught on fire”.
After a series of complaints, Edinburgh sent in a group of tradies to complete a maintenance quote. As they left, Marie felt “optimistic that things will be done”. Little did she know, though, that “things would be done” much sooner than she had anticipated. The very next morning, while Marie was asleep, “a man unlocked my bedroom door and just walked on in.” Awoken by the noise, she said the sight of a rando in her room “obviously… scared the shit out of me”.
The shock clearly rattled the tradie too, who “then asked if he could come in, once he was already in”. She said Edinburgh had never given her any communication regarding an upcoming repair job, never mind one that would be done in her bedroom while she was fast asleep. The tradie told Jessica that he was asked by the property’s owner, “Kevin,” to “take the master key from Edinburgh and just go through all the flats.” He had the maintenance quote from the first group of tradies, saying that “the original quote must have been too expensive” and that he was asked to give a second opinion on the repairs.
After firing off a complaint to Edinburgh Realty, Marie got a response from property manager Charlotte Wilson. In it, Wilson said that both Edinburgh and “the owner, who organised his own contractors, is really apologetic that this happened to you.” She added that: “[The owners] would really like to get the maintenance completed as soon as possible, however they should always respect people’s personal space. Sorry if that has not been the case today.”
It seemed open and shut, but a last minute response turned the entire story on its head. When approached by Critic Te Arohi, Edinburgh Realty flatly denied the claims. John Hornbrook, their Group Manager for Property Management, told Critic Te Arohi that “Notice was sent on 15/06/2022 advising tenants that on Monday 20/06/2022 and Tuesday 21/06/2022 a builder would be completing maintenance work in each room and stipulating the work being undertaken. It also advised the tradesman attending would have a key that he had collected from our office. The microwave was replaced within 2 working days.”
In response, Marie told Critic Te Arohi that “I was only told people would be in on Monday”; the builders were meant to be working in other parts of the complex on Tuesday. As proof, she sent a screenshot of an email sent by property manager Charlotte: “On Monday 20th Units A-C and Tuesday 21st remainder of C-E a builder will return to Anzac Avenue to complete work in each room”. She said that: “It was the wrong day, and it wasn't anyone connected to the tradies we'd seen the day before, so it seemed pretty dodgy. I mean, he just walked into my room!”
According to Dunedin City Council records, the complex on 5 Anzac Avenue has a rateable value of $780,000. However, while these publicly-available records generally show ownership information, the owner of these flats, “Kevin,” went out of their way to ask that their name and address not be shown: a step which requires filling out a (paper) form and sending it in by post to the Dunedin City Council.
*Name changed.