Everton Hall Student Suffers Mould Poisoning

By Phoebe Robertson (she/her)

The first thing Delah Varnon-Welch noticed when she unlocked the door to her new flat at Everton Hall was the smell.

It wasn’t the faint, musty tang of damp laundry or a window left closed. It was heavy, sour, the kind of staleness that clings to walls. By the time she had set down her bags on June 27, she had already seen mould streaking the kitchen walls and floor, and a yellow film spread across the shower floor and sink. Within days, she was coughing, sneezing, and unable to sleep. By the end of the month she was vomiting, fainting, and covered in rashes.

What she would later describe as “not how I expected my first trimester to go at all” had already become a fight to breathe.

Delah, an international student studying environmental science and ecology, arrived in New Zealand this winter after falling in love with the country during a previous working holiday. She had planned to move to Wellington for Trimester One, but ultimately decided to spend more time with her family in Oregon and push the move to Trimester Two.

In the meantime, she had taken a silver single at Everton Hall, paying $330 a week under a one-trimester contract that carried a 15 percent rent increase. She had already paid the bond—about $875—along with a July 4 installment of $1,330 and another $1,320 due August 1. Bank records dated to June 9 confirmed the payments so far.

Instead of the fresh start she had anticipated, she found herself scrubbing black mould off her bedroom walls with a chemical spray called Mould-Off, her skin erupting in hives.

Emails shared with Salient show that within the first week of her stay, Delah and her flatmates raised concerns with their hall managers. They asked for a dehumidifier, pointed out the damp smell, and reported mould spreading behind furniture. The response? A can of spray, a suggestion to clean it herself, and a wait of more than three weeks before professional cleaners  were dispatched. It was the same length of time before she was provided with a dehumidifier by the halls.

In an interview with Salient, Delah described a phone call from the Head of Hall that left her shaken. After she reported worsening symptoms, she was told the problem might be her immune system, that perhaps she was  sensitive to mould. “It was disheartening,” she said. “I told them the flat was mouldy from the very first week. I was told to clean it better.”

By then, her symptoms had escalated to violent vomiting, coughing and congestion, fainting, and difficulty concentrating. Poison Control advised her to leave the room immediately. On July 28, just a month after moving in, she abandoned Everton Hall altogether. A doctor at Mauri Ora provided her with a note that same day, which she later shared with Salient. It recorded “numerous symptoms possibly related to household mould exposure,” including fatigue, itchy rashes, sneezing, sinusitis and allergic rhinitis, coughing, and gastrointestinal issues. The doctor confirmed their support for Delah—and for anyone else living in the apartment—to move out and seek alternative accommodation, with suitable compensation, until the situation was resolved.

Internal correspondence obtained by Salient shows that university staff debated how to handle her complaint. A draft response from the Associate Director of University Accommodation stated that “Delah’s actions or inactions contributed to the mould growth in her room,” citing rubbish behind her bed and insufficient ventilation. Delah rejects this characterisation, saying there was no rubbish behind her bed and that the mould developed regardless of her actions.

The proposed resolution was partial: a 50 percent refund of rent from the date the hall acknowledged the mould, release from her contract, and return of her bond.

Delah rejected the offer. Through a VUWSA advocate Becky Cody, she wrote that the mould was visible upon moving in, that her early requests for help were dismissed, and that the scale of regrowth suggested a structural issue rather than student behaviour. She asked for a full refund, accountability for health and safety failings, and—crucially—better protections for international students.

When Salient approached the university for comment on the state of the Everton Hall flats, as well as whether Delah would be given a full refund, a University spokesperson said they “care about the health and wellbeing of our residents” and were “actively working with the student to address the concerns raised.” They declined to provide further detail while the process was ongoing. The spokesperson also stressed that students in independent halls are responsible for cleaning and ventilating their own rooms and common areas, and noted that the University is “reviewing the processes in place for when a student moves into an existing flat with flatmates who already live in the property.”

In an interview with Salient, Delah disagreed with the university’s assessment of her living conditions. From her first week at Everton Hall, she took ventilation and cleanliness seriously—opening windows daily in both her bedroom and shared spaces to improve airflow, and drying damp surfaces. But despite her efforts, the mould remained rampant, spreading across walls and behind furniture.

A meeting between Delah, her advocate, and the Head of Hall took place at 10am on Thursday 28 August. At the meeting, Delah was offered—and accepted—a full refund for her bond and rent from the University.

Delah and her advocate described the situation in prior emails as “particularly disheartening that action only occurred once Delah’s health deteriorated—a reactive rather than preventative approach.”

Unlike domestic students, international students arrive with little context about New Zealand’s notoriously damp housing stock. They are less likely to have family nearby to advocate for them. They often invest extraordinary sums of tens of thousands in tuition fees, travel costs, and rent—in the hope of a safe, stable education.

Yet, as Delah’s experience shows, when things go wrong, the response can be piecemeal and slow. She recalls waking up one night with her throat raspy and her chest tight. “I called poison control because I didn’t know what else to do,” she said. “They told me to get out immediately.”

For an international student, “getting out” doesn’t come easily. Rent is prepaid in installments. Contracts carry penalties. There are fears of jeopardising visas if accommodation is disrupted. Delah felt trapped. “It opened my eyes to how international students are not treated fairly here,” she said. 

She considers herself fortunate to have already known people in New Zealand from an earlier stay. “Most international students don’t have any contacts here if they get sick,” she explained. Even with that support, she admits she had little idea of her rights. A friend, Florrie, and her family helped guide her through the process, introducing her to VUWSA. “It’s unfair that students who are just here on exchange have to spend their time fighting an institution that doesn’t acknowledge them,” she said. “If I hadn’t known Florrie and her family, it would have been a lot harder to navigate this whole situation.”

The emails also reveal a troubling discrepancy between what students reported and how those reports were documented.

When staff later reviewed her move-in inspection form, they noted no mould was recorded at the time. Yet Delah insists the musty smell was immediate, that mould was visible in the kitchen and bathroom from day one. “We cleaned it ourselves when we moved in,” she explained.

This gap between student testimony and institutional record-keeping raises bigger questions: How many other students have experienced unsafe housing conditions that were quietly attributed to “lack of ventilation” or “student hygiene”? How many complaints are brushed away until a health crisis forces action?

The university insists in emails that it acted quickly once formally notified. But for Delah, the distinction between “informal” and “formal” complaints is meaningless when her health collapsed within weeks.

“I made such a commitment—being away from family and home to study here for the entire university programme,” she said. “I thought I didn’t have to worry about housing, because the accommodation was owned by the university. That’s why this has been so disheartening.”

She has since moved into a private flat, where her symptoms eased within days. She continues her studies, though she says the experience has left her determined to advocate for others. “In so many ways it feels like an abuse of power,” she reflected. “Mostly from the halls, but also the university as a whole. I don’t want other international students to be treated like this.”

What Delah didn’t know when she signed her contract is that students in halls of residence don’t have the same rights as renters in private flats. Because university-run accommodation is exempt from the Residential Tenancies Act, she had no recourse to the Tenancy Tribunal and none of the protections covered by the Healthy Homes Standards. Instead, disputes are managed through internal complaints systems and pastoral care codes—processes that rely heavily on the same institutions that own the halls to investigate themselves.

This gap in the law has already had devastating consequences. In 2019, the death of 19-year-old Mason Pendrous at Canterbury University’s Sonoda Hall exposed just how little oversight existed. His body lay undiscovered in his room for weeks, sparking public outrage and a law change. In the aftermath, Parliament rushed through the Education (Pastoral Care) Amendment Bill, introducing a mandatory code of practice for student accommodation and financial penalties for breaches. But even then, the reforms stopped short of granting students full tenancy rights.

Together, these examples reveal a troubling reality: when students in halls suffer harm—whether from unsafe conditions, neglect, or mistreatment—they are caught in a legal grey zone. Unlike private renters, they cannot turn to the Tenancy Tribunal. Unlike most consumers, they cannot easily escalate to independent regulators. Instead, they are left relying on universities to hold themselves accountable.

For Delah, that meant her pleas for help went through the same managers who had dismissed her early complaints as “sensitivity.” For Mason, it meant his absence went unnoticed until it was too late. 

For Delah, despite the full refund, the scars are still fresh. She looks back at the rashes, the fainting, the sleepless nights. But what lingers most is not just the mould.

“It’s the lack of care,” she said quietly. “That’s what hurt the most.”