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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