Family's P house horror

Tai Sadaraka, 73, (grandfather), Ngere Paul (mother), Ryan Paul (father), Zuriel, 4, and Kiana, 1. Photo: Tracy Hardy.

A family of six, including a baby, are coming to terms with health issues they say they have accrued from three years of unknowingly living in a former Tauranga P Lab.

The Pauls moved out after Methsafe inspected the property in early January and found it was still heavily contaminated from more than three years ago, when former tenants were arrested on drugs charges. Police raided James Cook Drive in November 2012, suspecting a meth lab was operating there.

In a media statement, Police say swabs were taken but results weren't returned to them from Institute of Environmental Science and Research until July 2013.

Because of the delay, the information wasn't passed to property owner David McQuoid or Tauranga City Council.

Ngere and her husband Ryan, Ngere's father Tai and three children including the baby girl, who was born while the family was living in the house, are all suffering from health issues, says Ngere.

The now one-year-old was recently in hospital with a severe skin rash across her back, which doctors are unsure how to treat, says Ngere. The baby used to lie on the contaminated flooring of the house.

'The whole time we were there we had skin rashes, breathing problems, but our baby who was born in there at the house, and my dad – they were the ones we were really concerned about.

'That's why we did the meth test,” says Ngere.

She says they had Methsafe test the house after repeated requests to David failed.

David says the first indication he had of the house's toxicity is when Methsafe conducted tests in January 2016 at the tenants' request, and they were positive.

'Methsafe rang up to say ‘We have done a test on your property – and it came up positive'.”

Police told him previous tenants were arrested as a result of the 2012 raid, and they said there was drugs, but he didn't hear anything else, says David.

'And we now found out a week ago that the Police did do a test but their administration team failed to let us know the response of the test,” says David. 'We found that out, it was the beginning of February or end of January this year.”

Ngere says David did know about the house's P lab history because she confronted him about it upon signing the lease. When she asked him if the house had been professionally decontaminated, he said it had been.

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