They're known as 'invisible booby traps” – rental homes contaminated by methamphetamine manufacture or use, and inhabited by unwitting tenants. It's said the problem in Tauranga is second only to Auckland.

Now, a local lawyer believes meth contamination is being used as a 'scare tactic” to resolve a bitter tenancy dispute and drive a young Tauranga mother from her home.

Scare tactics? Amy Barlow cleans her contaminated home. Photo: Bruce Barnard.

The young mum, Amy Barlow, wants to make it clear: 'No way in hell did that contamination happen under my watch. Get that straight.”

And she agrees with the lawyer that this is another attempt to move her and her 'babies” on 'without just cause”.

'They have tried to ease me out, they have tried to prise me out and now they're trying to frighten me out,” says a tearful Amy. 'And the depression and anxiety has kicked in something wicked.”

The lawyer and Amy have applied to the Tenancy Tribunal for 'an urgent order to show cause”.

And in an acrimonious blow and counterblow affair the property manager, Tauranga Rental, has also gone to the Tenancy Tribunal to wrest possession of the house back from Amy and to recover rent arrears. For her part, Amy says she is going to file a 'substantive counter-claim.”

It comes on the back of a protracted, nine-month tenancy dispute in which the tribunal, in a ground-breaking decision, threw out the landlord's order for Amy to quit his property. But it didn't end there.

'I got a call from Tauranga Rentals,” reveals Amy, 'telling me a prospective buyer has had the house tested for meth and it was contaminated to an uninhabitable level.”

Not for the first time Tauranga Rentals ordered her out, gave her just seven days to vacate the Greerton home with her kids and their toxic clothes and belongings.

'It takes a lot to scare me,” she says. 'But I was terrified.”

And even though she had been living in an ”uninhabitable meth contaminated” house for three years, the landlord was expecting her to 'get out with all her belongings, clean the carpets and leave the house spotless.”

Amy had some crucial questions for Tauranga Rentals: What were the contamination levels, who conducted the tests, did her children's bedrooms test positive and could she have a copy of the report? She says she got no information apart from the order to move out.

'My first concern was for my babies,” she explains. 'I got them out immediately and they haven't been home for a month. Their clothes are still in there along with birthday presents they haven't even played with.”

Exposure to methamphetamine residue can have consequences – at best headaches, nausea, fatigue, coughing, chest pain and skin burns. And at worst, kidney damage, cancer and even death.

But Beverley Edwards, managing solicitor of Baywide Community Law Service, questioned the veracity of the testing. 'Expert advice” told her the tests were 'a nonsense”.

'You are meant to have five tests,” says Beverley, 'and you can't put results together as a composite, which is what they did. Their interpretation of the test are questionable and gave Amy the fright of her life.”

Managers of the Greerton home, Tauranga Rentals, stand by the tests.

'They were conducted by a proper registered drug testing company from Hamilton,” says business manager Dan Lusby. And he says there's no point doing any more tests because the results would be the same.

Solicitor Beverley Edwards says after three years it would be expected that Amy and her children would have manifested signs and symptoms had the property been contaminated to an uninhabitable level.

'The results didn't say the house was uninhabitable, the results said we need further tests done.”

Did Tauranga Rentals offer Amy and her family alternative accommodation when the alarm went up? 'No,” says Beverley.

'That would have been the decent and responsible thing to do. They just gave her five days to get out.”

'We don't have alternative houses just sitting there for an emergency situation,” explains Dan Lusby. 'That's for WINZ – we are not in the business of social housing.”

But didn't Tauranga Rentals have a moral obligation towards its tenant?

'Perhaps we did,” says Dan. 'However, the amount of grief we have had from this woman prevented it. It slipped my mind, but not on purpose.”

So Amy and Beverley want Tauranga Rentals ordered to show proper cause why they should serve an eviction notice.

'My tenancy is being wrongfully terminated,” says Amy.

They also believe a 'due and diligent” landlord would have investigated and remediated any meth problems before she took occupancy.

Tauranga Rentals explains that when it took over the property it had been 'trashed by Housing NZ tenants”.

'So before Amy moved in we put in new carpets, new curtains and new drapes,” says Dan. 'It was thoroughly cleaned, repairs were done to holes in doors and walls and it was re-painted.”

He says no thought was given to drug tests because the property had been given such a thorough make-over. And in response to the allegations of 'scare tactics”, Dan says his company is just doing its job. 'This is how tenancies run.”

But Amy still wants Tauranga Rentals to conduct 'legitimate and adequate” swab tests to identify meth levels and what it'll take to decontaminate the home, Amy's property and clothes. And Tauranga Rentals just want her gone so it can get on with its business.

'Me and the kids just want to come home,” says Amy.

But when and if is now back in the hands of the Tenancy Tribunal.