Wally's tales

The Government has just announced that it is prepared to partly assist those who are effected with homes that come within the scope of what today is known as, a ‘Leaky Home’ syndrome. In New Zealand today it’s an enormous problem, it only manifests itself some years after homes have been built, and those constructed in a certain mode. In many cases the builders have moved on, or are unable to be contacted. The luckless owners suddenly finds that, they have now been saddled with a relatively new home, that’s slowly rotting from within. Unfortunately they are faced with a mammoth repair bill, which when coupled with mortgage repayments, in many times this is beyond their financial resources. As well, nobody in their right mind would want to purchase any one of these infected homes. As well these homes are not just an odd random cases, in fact, there are thousands of homes similarly effected.

There is more than one cause of this building aberration. It was really made possible when the building code was altered some 10 years ago to allow untreated timber to be used in framing. This is the nub of the problem when coupled with a change of architect practices to allow the use of chicken wire and plaster. What we used to call ‘Rough Cast’. Don’t get me wrong, I’m very much in favour of this method of construction. It’s cheap, and practical. I witnessed something when I was very young, that made on me an lasting impression. It concerned an old home that had it’s life extended by this method. It had caught fire, and the only thing left standing after the home was destroyed, was the chicken wire and cement.

Architects even after some six years training deserve some blame. In spite of hundreds of years of building homes, our forefathers were savvy enough to know, if you didn’t have a reasonable roof overhang protecting the walls of the home, they would leak. I know that in many parts of the world many were built with none, but surprise, most of these homes that were built this way were in the Sahara, or some other place where it didn’t rain very much. Unfortunately, our Architects full of book learning, and in many cases very little common sense, went on a crusade to produce ‘clean cut’ homes with no overhang. And the result was they leaked, coupled with untreated timber rotted away internally.

However all this being said, coupled with some sloppy building practices and a modern adaptation of this style of building which gave the Architects free reign to express themselves, and to produce homes that looked stylish, modern, and relatively cheap.

These homes were not built of chicken wire and cement, as we did in the past, but a modern equivalent. Slabs of cement board. Great care had to be observed with this method of construction, in that all capping, and flashing, were up to the manufacturers specifications. Herein lies the root of the problem. If water was allowed to leak onto the untreated timber interior framing through poor building practises, ‘Dry Rot’ found an easy target. Relatively new homes were now being destroyed from within. The unsuspecting owners were unaware what was happening until it was too late. Remedial action, without specialist assistance was next to impossible. This method of construction also allowed into the building trade, what are loosely called cowboys. It was surprising what a couple coats of paint could conceal. If the builders had traded under the guise of a limited liability company, they could go into receivership, or liquidate the company virtually disappear overnight avoiding any legal redress. Enter the lawyers ready to sue, and in the process garner fat fees. The Government’s move of paying 25% of the repair costs plus a further 25% from by Local Bodies, was to deal lawyers right out of the equation. These grants haven’t pleased many of the Home Owners either. But it’s a much better deal than going down the legal path where they could fail more often than not in their claims, yet still be stuck with legal costs.

Of course, ‘It’s not enough’, cry the home owners. But it’s the only deal in town. Further, the Government will extend to the owner a long term loan which is more than fair. The only looser on this sad scenario is the rate payer, who will have to pay for the councils 25% in the end.

Our Prime Minister John Key is having bad time with the Press. The left leaning reporters never miss an opportunity to discredit him, Currently they are having a field day with one of his recent utterances. They have built up their campaign up from very little, managing to turn it into a media storm. The light hearted remark sounded to me that it was meant as joke, which could be taken two ways. That’s providing you are educated enough to work it out. However, even though it concerns them, the Maori folk are treading very lightly around this controversy. Further more, they would like to have any reference to the dark side of their past, put well and truly behind them.

The Maoris have been busy rewriting their History for a long time, always trying to portray their past is squeaky clean. They wished that in early New Zealand when the Europeans initially arrived, they lived in splendid isolation, that they were known as the ‘Friendly Isles’. Further more, if we played by their rules taking into account the kind of treatment they meted out to other tribes. In particular the Moriori’s at the Chatham’s, as an example. The Maoris from the Wellington Area, on the hunt for more land, came across these owners of the Chatham’s Islands, a peaceful tribe. Why not take advantage of their demeanour, slaughter them all? These inhabitants at the time numbered some 2,000 more or less, They were all clubbed to death, if you were wondering this is not ancient history, but in the mid 1800’s. This policy of helping yourself by taking other folks land, at the same time suppressing any retribution by genocide, appears was their idea of fair play. It was also reported at the time, that some of these unfortunate people as survivors, were actually eaten, or enslaved. These aggressive Maoris are the same people who are today still seeking redress for purported actions and behaviour of our early white settlers, even after some two hundred years. This is in spite of receiving many benefits, pensions, plus large lump sums of money, amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars to settle any grievance. The word ‘enough’, apparently is not in their vocabulary

I heard another story this week where one Maori woman activist, was causing a ruckus, seeking the return of several Maori shrunken heads from the French, and other European Museums. Rather naive of this woman. Many of these heads had a Moko tattooed on them, which they sold for a better price. Once some of these scoundrels who sold these artefacts knew there was a market for these grizzly items, they were quick to take advantage of this opportunity by producing same. Is this the action of these people who today say they revere their ancestors? Of course it wasn’t. No, the heads didn’t belong to some great chief of their clan or an adjoining tribe. Just some poor slave kept for that particular purpose, and to supply shrunken head market. And you want one with a Moko? That will be extra because of it’s uniqueness, but we can supply. If you believe what this woman is saying about her ancestors, you are just as gullible as the original purchasers. If we had had the Auckland bridge at that time, they would have sold that too.

All this took place in the middle of negotiations to hand over the ownership of the Urewera National Park. The Prime Minister stopped in full stride, immediately broke off all talks. For certain he had received a message from the Nation. That this move was going a step too far. It will be interesting to see what is to happen with the Coastal and Sea Bed claims which are on the back burner. I personally believe that all public lands, as well as the sea shore, belong to all New Zealanders, and shouldn’t be part of any negotiations. If John Key was wishing for a second term, he should step very warily with this claim also. We have no need to feel guilty over our forbearers conduct. For a start we have doubled their life span from 35 years, taken them away from their miserable existence, that they endured earlier. As well today they have the benefit of roads, bridges, good housing, and a infrastructure that’s second to none. As well, should they wish to take advantage an education and a written language which they never had before.

There is a lot of interest in our coming Mayoral Election. Sir Kerry Burke is desperately looking for a home after being ousted as chairman of Environment, Canterbury. That was a sweet berth for those in charge well paid and plenty of ‘Perks’ related to the job. But his handling of that position didn’t do him any credit. In the last few months there was a lot of ‘in fighting’ with his Board, as a result he was voted off as Chairman, being replaced by councillor Neill. As you would expect, this Board attracts a lot of people who are Green oriented in their thinking, plus a strong Farmers input who are interested in getting their share of the available water. I saw their policies in action recently when Brian Harvey called to say he had purchased a Pellet heater. I inquired, ‘Had he obtained a permit’?. This is in spite of the fact that ‘Ecan.’ actually recommend Pellet Heaters. He immediately rang from here and was told by the employee who seemed to have an agenda of her own. ‘Sorry’, ‘These heaters are not allowed to be used where you live’. I too was annoyed when I purchased my unit, being stung several hundred dollars for a permit for something that they approved, plus another $160 from the Christchurch Council who were also double dipping it seemed, they got into the act as well, clipped my ticket ordering the replacement of my smoke detectors which were only one month old. ‘Ecan’ hadn’t finished with me either, another $35 to find out if I had actually installed the fire. Brian by the way had his permit in a couple of hours, once the store who sold the unit got into the picture. The situation is academic now as the Government has acted on their past bad performance, replacing the Chairman and Councillors with commissioners. I think they got the wrong target. The real villains, are the various managers, and some of the green employees. There are 500 employees all told, it’s surprising what mischief some of these folk can get up to, when they are busy empire building, and creating new departments if all the stories I’m told are true.

Anyhow back to the mayoralty election. Christchurch District seems always to have voted Labour, right down to their local body elections. This is reflected in the Councils Social Policies. We now have the largest number of cheap rental houses of any Borough in New Zealand. I pay $60 a week for my rates, which is starting to look like a rent. I’m not happy about ‘Bank Rolling’ a Council who wish to embark on enterprises that should be the domain of Central Government. I feel Councils should stick to their knitting, not embarking on ‘Do Good’ Social Policies. Recently our new Council for this current term, which for some reason didn’t manage a Labour majority. They actually had the audacity, (My Word) to proposed a small increase in rent to assist with the maintenance of these Council Flats. No way, would the tenants wear this, they expected the ratepayers again, to dip into their pockets and come up with these funds. With the assistance of some left leaning legal help, they went to the Courts and have obtained a delay. If you were wondering? No they don’t pay anywhere near market rents

I say Labour because that’s what they call themselves, but today’s labour is nothing like what it started out as in the days of Nash, Peter Fraser, Semple, Savage, McMillan, Nordmeyer and Webb. The Party has changed so much that the aforementioned founders of the Labour party would regard today’s lot, as a bunch of rabid Tories.

Which brings me back to our Mayoralty election. Jim Anderton the politician is also eying the Mayoral robes, as well as well as a Dr Woods. She is also an aspiring Labour politician, but so far hasn’t managed to get her self elected to any office. But she will be so long as we retain the ‘List’ system. Surely these mayoral candidates will sort themselves out before election day, or the Labour hopefuls will split the vote, allowing Bob Parker to slide in. If Anderton gets in, it will be an interesting period. As someone said, he believes in democracy, so long as you agree with him in all matters.

Bob Parker the incumbent Mayor is the same TV personality they fronted for, ‘This is your Life’ and ‘The farmer of the Year.’ In my eyes he has done a good job. He has been criticised for not disclosing details up front of some of the Councils multi million dollar deals they were involved in, especially property. I would have done much the same when dealing with big money, as not everyone plays by the rules.