Welcome And Meet Jessica

SPEAKER_00 0:10

If you were wondering about the healthy homes, this is the episode for you. So listen up. I've got an expert with me today in the studio, maybe. She's looking at me very worried. Hello, Jessica. Hello. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you for agreeing. So this is Jessica Kelty, and she's got a business called Thrive Kind. That's right. Give me the background. Where did you hail upon us in Carpenter Coast?

SPEAKER_01 0:34

Okay, yes. So background for Jessica. I have been working for the last 10 years in the uh

From Project Manager To Thrive Kind

SPEAKER_01 0:39

property and construction industries. About 18 months ago, I lost my job as a project manager in a construction company. And being a 47-year-old woman, I've found it extremely difficult to find employment again in this economy. So after 18 months of finding no jobs and having barely any interviews or anything, I've decided to start my own business. And I have retrained to be a home per home performance advisor, which allows me to do things like healthy homes assessments and help people, you know, live in homes that perform well and actually make them well instead of making them sick. So, yes, my business is called Thrive Kind, and it's basically evolved from empathetic consulting because I'm an empathetic person, I'm, you know, a woman in this industry, and I really wanted to convey the fact that I operate from a place of phonona tanga, which is forming relationships and bringing Fano along on their journey with me with their homes and and their children and making their their homes healthy for their farnos. So the the whole premise of my of my business is that I will walk with you on a journey. I'm not just a tradesperson, I will come and help you achieve all your healthy home goals and you know, not just walk away at the end of the day. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:05

You're not just coming here, ticking the boxes and walking out. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 2:08

Yeah, yeah, yeah. A lot of my clients as well are, you know, vulnerable members of society. So a lot of elderly people, a lot of people, you know, at the low economic spectrum. So, you know, they need that extra help.

SPEAKER_00 2:24

Okay, so healthy homes. We it was a lot on the news, right? Over the last few years, legislation came into force, all the landlords had to

The Compliance Gap In Healthy Homes

SPEAKER_00 2:34

meet the requirements, and then everyone left at the last minute, and then everyone was rushing in to get it. What can you tell me more about that area of what you see right now?

SPEAKER_01 2:43

Yeah, so something that I have started to do is a petition to the parliament with the with regards to the healthy home standards, because at the moment there are standards in place. The government has put minimum standards in place for our healthy homes, but there is no compliance system. So the problem with this is that landlords are signing themselves off as complained. You can sign yourself off. 100%. There isn't that there's no tracking of anything, there's no numbers. The government doesn't have any sort of a database of landlords or who's meeting expectations and who's not. There's no data available on this. So that's the big problem because what it creates is a huge power imbalance between a tenant and a landlord because at the moment the onus is on the tenant to complain about the house rather than having the landlord have the onus to have the house healthy before the tenant moves in. Yes. So that's causing really a lot of problems because unhealthy homes contribute to an additional 1,600 deaths a year over winter, the winter period. We

Cold Air Dampness And Health Harm

SPEAKER_01 3:56

have in New Zealand 40,000 hospital admissions every year that are linked to respiratory illnesses associated with poor housing. Fifty percent of renters report that their house is mold, mouldy, and damp. So those are huge numbers. And you can think about the impact on our health system with those numbers.

SPEAKER_00 4:16

I was surprised when I first came to New Zealand. I was actually quite surprised to see so many people having asthma issues. Yeah. And I didn't know why at that point.

SPEAKER_01 4:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:24

And then the more I live here, the more I learned.

SPEAKER_01 4:27

Yeah, it's funny because I think back in back in the day, you know, a lot of our uh grandparents and parents were told to sleep with their windows open, and that actually is really bad for us to to breathe in cold air. If we breathe our homes should be between 18 and 20 degrees. The World Health Organization has recommended if you are elderly or if you have children in your home, or if you have any sickness, your home should be at 20 degrees. Whereas if you just if you're not elderly and you don't have any sickness, then 18 degrees is is is fine. And most of our homes are well below that. When you start breathing in air below 16 degrees, it has an impact on your pulmonary and cardiovascular systems, your blood thickens, and you do, and you get things like you know, asthma and rheumatoid, I can't remember what the other throat starts with. It starts with R, not arthritis, but it's uh a respiratory illness. So it's really bad. And a lot of our tamariki have these have these things. You know, you'll notice a lot of our tamariki have asthma, you know, and that's yeah, I was shocked. Yeah, it can all a lot of it, obviously not all of it, can be attributed to um poor living conditions.

SPEAKER_00 5:35

Yes. Okay, so what can the government do further to help?

SPEAKER_01 5:41

Well, what I I've started this petition to the government to change the system so that landlords have to go through a compliance system because at the moment the only compliance system is when tenants take a landlord through the tenancy tribunal. And how would the tenants know to even do that? Well, that's the thing. That that therein lies the the crux of the issue because you know, tenants are already uh, you know, uh how do you say not as not as powerful as the landlord because you know they're renting this house, they're often spending about 40% of their salary or income on on how on their rent, which means you know there's less money to actually do any improvements to the home, like buying curtains or secondary glazing or things like solutions. So this is a real problem. So that's what we need to change. We need to change the fact that landlords are signing themselves off. And I've there's quite a bit of pushback that I've had from this because and what I want to say is that this is only it's not aimed at the bad landlords. If you're a good landlord, you've got nothing to worry about.

SPEAKER_00 6:51

Well, that's why I was surprised because when my property manager took over some of my properties for me, she said, Oh, we've got to get this certified, you know. And I had a proper inspector come through, and proper inspector have done it. And some of those properties that she took over were privately managed by me before that. And I thought that you cannot certify them yourself. I would so that's why I'm so surprised that this is a practice. Yeah. And that it I agree with you, it shouldn't be because there can be a lot of dodgy stuff going on there where the landlords can just stick the boxes and send it off, and nobody checks on that. That's exactly right. Or at least there should be a double check. I think okay, landlord has ticked it off themselves, but there should be a certified person. I mean, we can't install plumbing ourselves, we can't install electricity ourselves. We always have a certified person to come and do it for us.

SPEAKER_01 7:41

Exactly. So, how is that different? Exactly. And you think about also there are you know, there's a building warrant of fitness for commercial buildings, there's a building where there's a warrant of fitness for your car. Why is there not a compliance warrant of fitness for the place where you sleep and live and raise your children? It doesn't make sense to me.

SPEAKER_00 8:01

No, but you know, uh on the flip side of it, I know a lot of property owners that buy a house, especially first-time buyers. You know, they buy a house and it's not compliant at all. And they live in it.

SPEAKER_01 8:12

So that is initial as well.

SPEAKER_00 8:14

You know, like it's not good enough to be rented, yet it's good enough for someone to buy it and live in it. Yeah. That also blows my mind.

SPEAKER_01 8:20

Yeah. I can this is probably a really good time to talk about Warmer Kiwi Homes. Warmer Kiwi Homes is a program that's been running for over 20 years. And if you have a gold card or a community services card, then you are eligible for up to 90% of your your insulation. Wow. That's ceiling insulation, subfloor insulation, and ground vapor barriers. I can attest to the program. I've had it myself. I got insulation upgrade in my ceiling and my under my subfloor, and I've got a ground vapor barrier, and I've had I paid one cent for it.

SPEAKER_00 8:52

This program is not sponsored by Phoebe Warmer Holmes, just clarifying. But we do give them a shout-out.

SPEAKER_01 8:59

Yeah, but I no, I it's a free program and it's specifically out there to help homeowners bring their homes up

Why Independent Checks Matter

SPEAKER_01 9:06

to standard because there is such a problem with our housing stock in New Zealand. It's an amazing program. So I would encourage anybody who, even if you have insulation and you think it's sufficient, it's probably more than likely, you know, if it's more than five years old, it might not be.

SPEAKER_00 9:20

But it's got to be for owner occupiers, right?

SPEAKER_01 9:22

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_00 9:23

You can't be a landlord wanting to do this for your tenants.

SPEAKER_01 9:26

No, that's correct. Yeah. You should, I mean, if you're running a business, you should be able to afford to run that business. So you should be able to afford to put insulation in that house for your tenants.

SPEAKER_00 9:36

Okay. So I also heard of some government initiatives coming up about solar systems and stuff like that. But I guess that's slightly different to this.

SPEAKER_01 9:44

Yeah, I think that's slightly different. Like I know that there's some really cool future-proofing going on with solar and you know, for disaster recovery and things like that. I know that we're looking to put solar on my eyes and things like that, but I'm not um educated enough to talk really too much about solar. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:03

So let's put your we'll step back and go back to your actual passion right now. So, how did you come up with this idea?

Warmer Kiwi Homes Support Explained

SPEAKER_00 10:10

How did you wake up one morning and go, I'm gonna do this?

SPEAKER_01 10:13

Well, to be fair, I do feel a little bit like a fraud because I have not been in this industry for very long. But the conversations I've had with my peers who have been in this industry for a long time, and the things that I have seen, then this is just something that we have to do. It's just something that I is very clear to me. And why are landlords signing themselves off? We see every day. Yesterday I saw a client, I walked out of that, and I you just cry. There's nothing else you can do because it's so upsetting to see these beautiful young families who obviously are really good tenants looking after their homes and just being treated like trash by their landlords and their landlords just not seeing the benefit of having an amazing tenant like that. But having said that, this is not the only solution. Having a compliance solution, a compliance system is not the only solution. I was chatting to a guy from the National Tenants Union and he was talking to me about having a database much like so that we can review landlords and homes. So because it's sort of three-pronged. You need the compliance, you need the reviews, but you also need tenant education because that's a really big part of the puzzle that's missing. A lot of tenants and people didn't have the luxury of guides or mentors to tell them how to blast ventilate their house or to say that you need to open your window when you take a shower. Like a lot of people just don't know that stuff. So there's a huge space, I think, as well for for uh more tenant education. How do we educate them? It's a good question. I I would love it to be a life skills course in uh you know, in seventh form or whatever. I was about to show

Reviews Databases And Tenant Education

SPEAKER_01 12:02

my age there, sorry, seventh four.

SPEAKER_00 12:04

I was about to say, I think it should start at school, and I think it should start even earlier. Like I'm constantly having these discussions with my kids that hey, when you shower, can you please turn on the fan? Can you please open the window? Often they'll have a shower, walk away, and the whole room is just steamy.

SPEAKER_01 12:17

Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, it's a hundred you're you're right. Like, I don't know what the solution is, but I think that targeting our young people who are missing out on that really important education is something that really needs to ride alongside the compliance system and a review system for landlords. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:34

I'm gonna take it a bit step further from your landlord discussion and go, the whole building code needs to change, honestly, in New Zealand. The way they build houses, even like the new houses that I'm looking at, you know, we're sitting in the new house and I've got sweaty windows, you know, because of the temperature difference here. The house gets really cold at night, even though I've got extra insulation, I've got extra windows that I've invested in, and this and this and the other. The this house still gets really, really cold.

SPEAKER_01 13:01

Yeah, it's an interesting topic to bring up because I actually think that anybody who's building a home should employ a healthy homes advisor or assessor right at the beginning when you're actually doing the design. Because the problem with our houses today is that we're building them differently. Now, instead of getting too cold, a lot of them actually get just far too hot. And you know, we build houses that are aesthetically beautiful, but they're not facing north, they're not getting the sun. So we're building houses with no eaves, you know, so uh it we have to look at it and you know, say whether or not we're building these homes correctly because they uh they may look beautiful, but maybe they just don't function properly.

SPEAKER_00 13:43

Yeah. And to bring back to your point about the tenants and the mold, I've been seeing so many posts on Facebook, you know, from people going, Hey, we've just moved into this new build property and we're getting all this mold. Like, what's going on here? And again, I think part of me that they were building them in certain areas of New Zealand, they were building them way too fast without any proper supervision, maybe cutting corners or even, you know, bathrooms leaking or whatever. Yeah, because a brand new house should not be causing any mould.

SPEAKER_01 14:13

I I definitely agree with you. And I don't know what the answer is, but I think it's all to do with like systems as well, and uh, the types of houses that we're building and the way we're orientating themselves. And it that is frustrating when you go to a client and you see their house, and there's literally nothing you can do about it because just either the way it's orientated or there's you know, trees and things like that. So some houses are just gonna be inherently bad houses because of the way they're built and the way they're orientated. But I think that we just need to get a lot smarter about it. You know, we still build houses that face the street. It's like why?

SPEAKER_00 14:50

I know. I'm just sitting here going, why? Yeah, I agree with you.

SPEAKER_01 14:54

It doesn't make sense. So I just think we need to be a little bit more pragmatic about it and just maybe, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:00

Yeah, I think there should be like a whole rehaul.

SPEAKER_01 15:02

Let's just start a petition. A complete rehaul.

New Builds Design Choices And Mould

SPEAKER_01 15:04

Okay, start that. That will be a mammoth petition. It's been very interesting, the feedback that I've been getting on my petition. Somebody has been called, I've been I'm getting messages saying I'm Hitler because I want more compliance. You know, I get people telling me that I'm, you know, I hate landlords, all these sorts of things.

SPEAKER_00 15:22

Let me guess it's probably people that own properties. Look, I own properties. Yeah, and I always I'm honest about my own property journey. And as a landlord, I agree with you. I think there should be compliance because that gives us a whole as a bad name. Like people that don't do things properly gives us the good landlords a bad name. And as I said, I didn't know any different. I thought, you know, you gotta get uncertified by a person because why wouldn't you?

SPEAKER_01 15:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:49

That just blows my mind.

SPEAKER_01 15:50

Yeah, no, I agree with you. And and that's the thing, is there's so many things you that you don't know you don't know. Yeah. And I think that's a huge problem for tenants as well. There's so many things that they just don't know, and so they can't.

SPEAKER_00 16:03

But then putting the shoe on the other foot as well, I did have some terrible tenants in the past. Yes, you know, so there are also tenants that should also be taking responsibility for their own actions. You know, just last year I've had a massive loss of sixty thousand dollars for my rental properties. You know, they were both, they both got absolutely destroyed by the tenants. I had to spend a lot of time renovating them, they wouldn't pay rent, yeah, all sorts. So, and those properties were brand new renovated when I gave it to them. Yeah, when I received them back, my property manager thought I've never done any work on those properties. Crazy. That's how bad they looked. Wow. So for me, I always try to look at things from both perspectives. You know, there are good landlords that try their best, they try to, you know, and as you say, well, it's a business, you gotta have the money, but sometimes you just end up in a big giant hole, yeah, not to the fault of your own.

SPEAKER_01 16:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:53

Well, because someone hasn't treated your home with respect. And for me, it's important that everyone should be taking responsibility, not just the landlords, not just the tenants, everyone together. Yeah. And I think the more we educate people in that area that, hey, yep, this are your responsibilities, this are our responsibilities, and together we hope to create a better New Zealand for all. Because at the end of the day, there will always be people that will be renting.

SPEAKER_01 17:16

Yeah. I a hundred percent agree with you. It's it's this is not the only solution. And there are, and again, like just like these bad houses, there's bad people as well. But hopefully, there's a system that I'm sure when it when those people move out, you don't give them a reference, for example. So they would then find it harder to find a house somewhere else. But I totally agree with you. There are some really horrific tenants out there. I don't know what the answer is to that. Education, I don't know. It's also breaking the cycles. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 17:49

I think a lot of the bad tenants that come through would have been part of the system. Yeah. You know, they would have come from either poverty or mental health or something, something would have gone wrong in their lives for them to be that way. Yes. And again, this is me, you know, being compassionate and empathetic because I do understand that life happens to people. So

Responsibility For Landlords And Tenants

SPEAKER_00 18:07

what sort of support systems do we put in there? You know, what sort of databases do we have for the landlords, for the tenants? You know, what needs to happen?

SPEAKER_01 18:15

Do you know there actually is already a database? It's the tenancy tribunal. So whenever you log a bond, you have to go through the tenancy tribunal. So New Zealand actually already has a database of every of most landlords. I'm not going to say every because I'm sure there are landlords out there that don't lodge bonds with the tenancy tribunal. But in theory, we've already got it in place. So if we can just turn the back end so it's forward-facing and turn it into a system that we can actually use, then I think that would be a really great, easy place to start.

SPEAKER_00 18:49

Yeah, you're right. I mean, I did I did get an issue, a landlord number, I think. Yeah. So you're right. There will be some sort of identification for the landlords.

SPEAKER_01 18:57

Yeah. So we're we're pretty much already halfway there with the database. Now we just need to turn it so it's public facing so that we can rate. We can rate properties and we can rate landlords, or both, and we can also rate tenants.

SPEAKER_00 19:09

Oh that's gonna be very uncomfortable for a lot of people.

SPEAKER_01 19:13

For some people, but again, it's gonna make life easy for it for the people who are doing things right. Yeah. You know, and which I think is what we need to do.

SPEAKER_00 19:21

And anything It's an honesty exercise as well, I think.

SPEAKER_01 19:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:24

I love that.

SPEAKER_01 19:25

Yeah. There's actually already a couple of websites. I know one, there's one down in Wellington where just a student, I think, has developed a website where you can go in and rate your flats.

SPEAKER_00 19:36

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 19:36

Yeah. Which I I think is brilliant. I I'd love to see more of that.

SPEAKER_00 19:40

Okay. Yeah. I was just uh I suddenly had the thought of you travelling down to the Need and then checking out those properties.

SPEAKER_01 19:47

Well, I did used to be a student. I have rented lots of places. I lived on Ada Street in Palmerston North, I think. Oh, Ada Street. I think anyone who knows Palmerston North knows Ada Street for the flats there. Good old Palmy. I'm from Palmy. Oh, really? Palmy's home.

SPEAKER_00 20:00

I know Ada Street. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:02

Yeah, so you'll know that. I mean, I think it's almost a rite of passage to live in a a terrible home as a young person, but it's definitely not what we want as we um as we get older and a bit more bit more mature, sorry.

SPEAKER_00 20:16

Yeah. No. You know, it's funny, a lot of landlords that I see are actually just mum and dad that buy something that they want their kids to stay in.

SPEAKER_01 20:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:24

And that's kind of sweet as well. I have a lot of um mum and dads right now coming through going, oh, my kid's gonna go to university next year or the year after, and I want to buy something for my kid to live in. Yeah. Because I don't want my kid to live in a very crappy place.

SPEAKER_01 20:37

Yeah. That's true. And you see more of that. And if I guess God, if parents can do it, lucky those kids, eh?

SPEAKER_00 20:44

Yeah, well, to be honest, I do feel sorry for those parents

Backyard Dwellings And Housing Solutions

SPEAKER_00 20:47

because I'm like, guys, you know, that's a big haul. How are you gonna pay it? Because obviously they're not gonna charge their kid a full rent.

SPEAKER_01 20:53

That's right. Yeah, what I'm seeing more of now as well, because you know they've changed the laws about having additional dwellings in your um backyard. So you can build a 70 square meter dwelling without a building consent now, which I think is amazing. It's going to help with intergenerational living. You know, it's going to provide a lot more sort of smaller places for elderly.

SPEAKER_00 21:16

I'm really excited by that. And I believe you still have to get certain checks along the way, which again, a lot of people didn't know. They thought that, oh, you could just go and slap whatever you want at the back. No, you're like you there are still checks that you still have to have a licence building practitioner to do it.

SPEAKER_01 21:30

So you wouldn't want just a cabinet maker to go into your backyard and build build a house, which was something that was suggested to me at some point. But no, you did you need to have, I mean, you'd still need to have everything certified as well. So yeah, but I think that's gonna be something that's gonna be really exciting for you know the our housing industry in New Zealand to see that popping up more.

SPEAKER_00 21:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:52

Hopefully they're gonna become a little bit more affordable. Yeah. But there's so many really cool solutions.

SPEAKER_00 21:58

I know I was just talking to another guy. I don't know if you've talked to him. I I think there was a big feature about him in the newspaper where he wants to build, I think they're like quick kids at homes as well. Yeah. But you know, much more healthier and much more faster that you can just build them and put them in and stuff like that. So I think there are solutions, and I think as a growing country, the population is growing, the population is aging. Yes. And we do need to take that into factor because I don't think they did that 30 years ago. I don't think they expected the population to grow as fast. Yeah. Or the migration happening so much. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:31

Yeah, I agree. I think it's going to I I I just hope that people take it up because not only can you potentially be helping out, you know, a family member down the line, but it's a great little side hustle for, you know, some some income on the side, having a little 70 square metre granny flat in your backyard.

SPEAKER_00 22:49

But also safety-wise, like let's say if there's a single mum, you know, and she's got um a kid at home and she doesn't feel awfully secure by herself, knowing that there's someone else at the back.

unknown 22:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:59

Awfully a nice person. At the back of your surely you'll bet them. Yeah. Having someone else at the back may provide some security. Sorry, I've been watching Netflix, the worst neighbours ever.

SPEAKER_01 23:08

Oh, me too. I'm like, oh. I know. God, that's insane, eh?

SPEAKER_00 23:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:14

No, I totally agree. I I yeah, I think it's going to be a great thing for the future. As, you know, as I think it's probably ramping up now. We're not going to see any benefits just yet, but you know, in the future, we will so five seconds of fame for you, Jessica.

SPEAKER_00 23:26

How do people find you? We'll put it in the footnotes as well of this podcast, and you can reshare that as well with your network. But for my listeners, how do they find you in their if they are in Capity Coast Wellington region?

How To Find Thrive Kind

SPEAKER_01 23:36

Well, I don't have a website yet because my business is still quite new and I need some a bit more capital. But you can find me on Facebook. My Facebook page is Thrive Kind, and I'm all over the Carpety Coast. And yeah, I'd be more than happy to help as many people as possible to live in their warm, dry, healthy homes. And yeah, I just want to see less less people in hospital, less sickness, less children with asthma, less all of the bad stuff.

SPEAKER_00 24:07

Look, I was just thinking if we if we can prevent just one death, yeah. You know, you had 16 deaths in there. If we can just prevent one death. 1600. 1600. Yeah, I forgot to put the hundred. Um, but you know, if we can just save one person from it, yeah, that's our job. You know, like we're all responsible collectively.

SPEAKER_01 24:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:28

So yeah. I love it.

SPEAKER_01 24:29

I'll leave you with one healthy homes tip then, something that we like to call blast ventilating. If you go around your house every morning, open up every door and window, leave

Blast Ventilating And Petition Goal

SPEAKER_01 24:38

them open for 20 minutes, and then shut it up again. Like that is just one thing that I tell everybody to do. It changes the air in your home, it doesn't lose any of the heat, you'll get less condensation, and it's an easy win and it's free. I love it. Yeah, thank you so much. Will you be back again to share more tips with us? I'd love to, yeah. I'd love to come and maybe you know, I am talking with Karen McAnolti about this pro petition as well. Like it's gonna go far and wide. I'm really hoping that I get, you know, five to ten thousand signatures on it so I can present it to whoever wins in the next election.

SPEAKER_00 25:15

Good luck. Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Jessica. Lovely to have you on the show. Thanks, Evanuso.