Living Hell: Apartment Disasters 2 shows the human cost of our leaky building problem. Tara Ward speaks to series presenter Roger Levie.

Leaky buildings aren’t the most exciting thing to talk about, and nobody knows that better than Roger Levie. “When you start talking about leaky and defective buildings, people’s eyes just glaze over,” the building advocate says, but he’s hopeful his new documentary series will change that. Along with his colleague John Gray, Levie presents Living Hell: Apartment Disasters 2, a documentary series for Sky Open and Neon that investigates the perilous state of building in New Zealand.

Levie and Gray have been helping homeowners with leaky and defective buildings for 20 years, and their new series is a follow up to their 2021 expose of the same name. Levie admits it’s difficult to return with such a negative story. It seems little has changed in the world of defective buildings over the past few years, and Levie reckons that’s partly because the topic is so hard to talk about. The solutions aren’t simple, there’s often conflict between apartment owners and body corporates, and it’s difficult for government agencies to provide fast and firm solutions. 

But Apartment Disasters 2 seeks to cut through the complexities by showing the huge personal cost of defective buildings. We meet Jagoda and Denis, who were expecting a child when their newly-renovated Auckland apartment was discovered to be defective and have been without a home ever since. There’s also Mike, who is brought to tears when he visits the ruined apartment he’ll never live in, but is still paying rates and a mortgage on. Body corporate issues can complicate repairs and solutions, as we see with apartment owner William, who has only just sold his property after seven long years of group negotiations.

The pain and stress these ordinary people are going through is palpable, and none of it is their fault. “These people rely on the system to protect them,” Levie says. “That whole system has failed, and the result is these situations that are having such a big impact on people.”

This is exactly what Levie and Gray want to change. In each episode, the pair look at the past, present and future of building in Aotearoa, and revisit buildings around the country that featured in the 2021 series. They also delve into possible solutions, travel to other countries where similar issues are occurring, and advocate for legislative change to improve building practices in New Zealand.

The documentary series is a stark and serious look into a problem many people don’t want to face, and having remediated his own leaky home many years ago, Levie acknowledges there are no easy answers. “We’re all working to find ways to minimise the impact on owners, but unfortunately, the buildings don’t fix themselves,” he says. The time for change is now, he believes. “Buildings are changing hands and people are buying themselves problems. We need to put a stake in the ground now, and start dealing with it.”

Above all, Levie hopes Apartment Disasters 2 will bring both awareness and momentum to confronting the grim state of housing in Aotearoa. “We’ve been at this for quite some time, and it’s unfortunate that we haven’t made more traction really over these issues,” he says, adding that he hopes the series will educate people about the risks of buying an apartment in New Zealand. “I hope people do realise that the problems are still out there, and they have a huge effect on people.”

Living Hell: Apartment Disasters 2 streams on Neon and screens on Sunday nights on Sky Open at 8.30pm.