Two tenants are lucky to be alive after a fire raged through their Coromandel home whilst they slept.

Emergency services were called to an incident on Carina Way, Whitianga, after tenants Alice Roscoe and Owain Leeming awoke to their living room destroyed at 7.35am on February 25.

The fire ravaged through the lounge and kitchen, leaving nothing but black soot and melted plastic in its path. It was later found out the reason for the pair not waking up was due to a faulty fire alarm.

Now the pair want to spread awareness about the importance of regularly checking fire alarms in rentals.

Area Manager Mark Tinworth says the fire is believed to have been caused by a faulty dehumidifier that was left on overnight.

He says the fire was out when firefighters arrived and was contained to one room.

'It appears that the smoke alarms installed in the house didn't activate,” Tinworth says.

If it wasn't for a mix of plumbing issues in the rental that had created damp carpet and Roscoe's decision to close the windows and hallway door- ultimately suffocating the fire-, Roscoe said they wouldn't be alive.

'Fire told me we are lucky to sleep through a house fire with faulty smoke alarms and survive,” Roscoe says.

Reflecting on that morning, the 23-year-old awoke with a headache and began coughing up black soot.

When she opened the door to the lounge, she quickly discovered why.

'The whole house stunk of burnt plastic.

'There was black throughout the house. It looked like something out of a horror movie.”

Roscoe moved into the three bedroom property in late November 2020 with three other flatmates.

One of the flatmates, who had her name on the tenancy application, had just moved out.

Roscoe was planning on signing over the contract to her name and two other flatmates were due to move in.

She says she didn't know the fire alarm was faulty, however, she did know about the plumbing issues and had notified the landlord about it.

She told Stuff she wasn't aware of the Healthy Homes Act that came in on July 1, 2019.

'There was faulty plumping throughout the house, so we had leaking taps. We had puddles leaking through the walls to our carpet in the lounge.

'The landlord tried to tell us it was our washing machine and that we hadn't plumbed it in correctly.

'We got a plumber in, and they said it was the plumbing in the house and suggested we get a dehumidifier.”

She says she had brought the dehumidifier off a friend's mum, who had recently had it serviced. She didn't know the brand of the dehumidifier.

'We knew not everything was up to scratch in the house, but because it was cheap rent ($380 a week) we kind of accepted it.

'I just kept thinking about what could have happened. If there had been even just one window open we could have been toast.”

Since the near death experience, she said the landlord has terminated their contract, but didn't hand over the bond until they had 'mowed the lawns and cleaned up the garden”.

'They tried to ask us to clean out our stuff first, but fire said there was no way we could go into the property it's too dangerous.

Roscoe is staying at her boyfriend's flat until she finds something more permanent. Leeming, 19, is struggling to find a place.

'It's a terrifying situation, but we are so thankful to be alive.”

-Stuff/Sharnae Hope.