Desmond Adams knew his upcoming knee surgery would be tough – weeks in recovery and months before he’d walk normally – but what he didn’t expect was to be doing it all while facing eviction.
A painter by trade, years of physical labour have taken a toll on the 52-year-old Hamiltonian.
Scans in April 2024 revealed fractures in both knees, with overgrown bone that needed to be shaved. The bone was pressing into a tendon on his left side which needed to be cut and repaired.
“My knees were poking out like nobody’s business,” Adams said.
Post-operation, doctors told him to expect crutches for three weeks, a minimal amount of walking and no driving for at least six weeks. Full recovery was expected to take four to five months.
Knowing how limiting this would be, he made sure to notify his landlord through his property manager well in advance, saying he notified them first in June last year and reminded them at every three-monthly inspection after that.
“At my last inspection in March, I had also reminded them about my surgery,” he said. “She said to me, ‘Yes, you have mentioned that a lot, and we hope everything goes well’.”
Just days on from that inspection, a letter arrived. Adams had been served a 90-day notice to vacate his Whitiora home.
“I felt really gutted, angry, and frustrated. It was like, what’s going on here? You guys have known about my surgery for a while, and now you’re serving me with this?
“How the heck do you expect me to look for a house in 90 days when I’ve got surgery, and then about four to five months in healing? I can’t actually get out to look for houses in that time.”
He says he asked for an extension on the notice to give him more time to heal before trying to move. But he claims that wasn’t granted.
Recovery on pause
The surgery went ahead as planned but with limited mobility and no ability to drive, Adams had to put his recovery on pause to begin house hunting.
He has had to rely on Driving Miss Daisy, the ACC-funded companion driving service, to attend property viewings. He’s been to 15 so far.
“It’s a slow process,” he said. “I’ve got 16 stairs to walk down, and then get into the car, go look at the house and then have to climb those 16 stairs again back to the house with two crutches.”
The house hunt has already come at a cost to his recovery and Adams said he “got a growling” from doctors when he went to his three-week check-up after the surgery.
“They saw my knees were bruised, not just from the operation, but they could tell I’d been doing some walking on it. They said ‘you’re supposed to be resting’, and I said ‘I can’t, I need to find a house’.”
Adams considered taking the matter to the Tenancy Tribunal to delay or set aside the eviction notice due to the severe hardship it would cause, but he abandoned this bid as under the legislation an eviction notice can only be challenged if it’s deemed to be retaliatory. A landlord can serve an eviction with 90 days’ notice without giving a reason.
The property manager declined to comment when contacted by 1News.
No-cause evictions
Renters United president Zac Thomas blamed the reintroduction of no-cause evictions by the coalition Government in February.
“When life knocks you down, the law now lets someone take the roof off too. This is exactly the kind of harm the government was told would happen.”
He described Desmond’s situation as “crazy”.
“I think any New Zealander with half a heart would look at this and say ‘this is not the society that we want to live in’.”
In a statement late last year, Housing Minister Chris Bishop said the reintroduction of no-cause evictions would “give landlords more confidence to offer homes to tenants who may otherwise have been considered too risky”.
“We’ve heard from many landlords that, without the backstop of 90-day ‘no cause’ terminations, they were unwilling to take a chance on a tenant who may, for example, not have perfect references or a steady 9-5 job.”
