The beginning of a long year that started over leaking toilets

Around June 11 2020- I called KO to discuss some maintenance and repair issues. Some of them, at the time were being undertaken but one of the problems that wasn't was the leaking toilets.

Skip ahead to June 26 2020 when I wrote to Kris Faa'foi as he was the then associate minister of housing to express my disgust at the maintenance division of KO. What transpired was a fob off by his office back to the very people I was trying to raise concerns around because apparently 3 phone calls about leaking toilets is an "operational issue" according to the Housing admin I received an email from.

What you need to know here is IF I come to you for help, and if you ask people who know me, that doesn't happen often BUT if I do and you fob me off, don't run after me offering to help when I tell you I'm going to go looking for someone else who will take my concerns seriously. Which is exactly what the housing admin tried to do. "Thank you for your email. Can you please confirm your parents address?" after I told them not to bother sending my concerns to KO. But in all seriousness, how do you confirm an address that was never given by either party in the first place? To this day, the confirmation of my parent's address has not been given to the housing Admin.

By July 2, I had reached the end of my rope over these damn toilets that still weren't fixed. so I did what most people do when they need to vent. They post on Facebook right? But being me, I didn't settle for ranting on my own page. Nope, I ranted on the KO Facebook page. It is amazing how quickly they respond when you publicly put them on blast. I've done it twice now and both times they have responded in less than 2 minutes.

The toilet was eventually replaced on July 30 after the silicone job KO approved to repair the toilet failed, just as the contractor warned me it could and just as the local plumber I called told me it could when I called to ask what the best fix for a leaking toilet was and what were the possible repercussions of just using silicone (apparently the leak could cause issues under the house making the problem worse).

What disappoints me the most is if I knew then what I know about KO tenants rights this could have been avoided. When I threatened to go to tenancy tribunal not even knowing that was even an option not once in those early days KO ever did tell me I could. I've had to find this all out by myself through my own research. Nobody ever sent me any kind of helpful information about the tenancy agreement my parents have with them, or maintenance guidelines or any of the other information KO tenants and their agents should be given. It is not enough to assume people are going to look at an overwhelming KO website that isn't tenant friendly. If you go to their website and look at the tenancy agreement is shows a list of 15 tenant responsibilities and just 5 landlord responsibilities. They have just 5 responsibilities to their tenants according to their own website and they can't even meet those five?

As I'm learning more and more about housing maintenance with KO and how they're failing in their job as landlords it makes me more determined to go to the Ombudsman to ask for a review into KO, and their practices.....