September 3 2015

Fatal House Fire - Housing NZ Statement

Last night there was a serious house fire at one of our Palmerston North properties which has tragically resulted in the death of an adult and a child living at the property.

We understand there have been reports that smoke alarms in the house may have been removed, this however has not been formally confirmed.

We visited the house in November 2014 to undertake an annual tenancy inspection.

At this time our tenancy manager noted that some of the smoke alarms had been
removed and some of the alarms could do with replacing. We treat non-working
smoke alarms as an urgent health and safety risk for our tenants, so we reinstalled 11 smoke alarms throughout the home.

The property is a 7-bedroom home and was due for another tenancy inspection in November this year.

Housing New Zealand is working with other agencies to support the family with accommodation and other needs in this most difficult of times.

As this incident is now the subject of a police investigation, we will not be providing any further comment.

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