Vasiti Pele and her husband Siosaia's sodden belongings piled outside their West Auckland home after their house flooded. Photo: RNZ / Soumya Bhamidipati
If the rental market was not already tight enough - spare a thought for hundreds of renters left in flood damaged homes, who are now desperately searching for a new rental, in what is already a difficult market.
So far 277 homes have been red stickered and more than 1615 are yellow stickered.
Victoria's eight-bedroom flat in Kingsland was one of many affected in Auckland's torrential rain.
Their downstairs section was flooded out twice. They were left to clean up the damage themselves.
"The owners came around and didn't really offer us any solutions, didn't provide any extra heaters or dehumidifiers or fans to air the place out. The smell was so bad and it's just been so damp ever since then."
While the flat was still habitable, the last two weeks had been miserable.
Their lease is due to run out on Saturday and they did not want to stay on in a damaged place.
The new flat they had lined up in St Mary's Bay has now been red-stickered.
They have been frantically searching for a place to call home, but it was proving extremely difficult.
"I went to a viewing on the Sunday just been and I was about 10 minutes early, but there was still at least five groups of people waiting outside already.
"As I made my way through the property another at least 30 or 50 odd had shown up. That property got rented three hours after the viewing, like it wasn't even a full day."
Come Saturday they would have to stay with family and friends.
Because they were paying their rent in advance, their last payment went through on the first day of the flooding.
But there had been no conversation about discounting the last two weeks of rent.
Consumer New Zealand chief executive John Duffy said that was something landlords needed to be looking at.
"There should be a discussion between the tenant and the landlord about whether reduced rent is appropriate and that will really depend on how badly the property's been affected. Here we're talking about situations where the property is still habitable; maybe the carpets need to be taken out."
He said any flood repairs were the responsibility of the landlord.
If a house had been red stickered and was totally uninhabitable, tenants could give two days' notice in writing to break their lease and stop paying rent.
Landlords should have insurance but any personal property was a renter's responsibility and needed to be covered with contents insurance.
Duffy was concerned for renters having to search for a new place in the middle of both a housing and cost of living crisis.
"It is highly likely that with a reduction in supply you'll see an uptick in price. There could be genuine reasons for landlords to be putting prices up, the insurance on the property goes up they may have to pass that cost on to tenants.
"We would just be really disappointed if landlords were taking advantage of this situation."
Renters United echoed this concern.
"People who are desperate are more willing to accept bad conditions... we expect that to have a very negative effect on the general state of tenants."
Spokesperson Ashok Jacob said the group had been inundated with questions from renters about what their rights were.
He said with the likelihood of recurring events in the future, tenancy laws needed to better protect renters.
"Extreme weather events as a result of climate change are obviously going to keep happening and tenancy laws really just need to be updated to reflect a country where 50 percent of adults are renters."
The government's temporary accommodation service is available for people displaced by the flooding and accepting registrations for those who need help to find somewhere to stay in the short term.
