Morten Brunbjergs Blog

There where a few good things about the hostel Richmond Lodge located in Ponsonby, Auckland and a lot of bad things. If you are a backpacker or thinking about visiting the lodge, you should probably read this. If not, just read it for entertainment purposes.

The good things

- Great location, just next to Ponsonby Road.
- Nice garden in the summertime.
- Nice tenants at the time we where there, which was the only reason we stayed for two months.
- Pretty cheap rent. Weekly 170 NZD for a single and 220 NZD for two people.

The bad things

Bathrooms:
- 13-16 people sharing two bathrooms. Do the math.
- Only hot water enough for the 3-4 first people in the shower in the mornings. One morning when the hot water tanks where completely empty the manager put up a note that told people they could not spend more than 10 minutes in the actual shower.
- We met several cockroaches in the bathrooms.
- No hand towels in the bathrooms. That means people ether dry their hands with toilet paper, don’t dry their hands and leave the light switch and door handle wet or people don’t wash their hands at all.
The kitchen
- No oven in the kitchen. When confronted with this the manager told me that an oven was a fire hazard, that people would steal the oven and that it simply would get too dirty. When I suggested they mentioned the lack of this pretty important cooking device too future tenants they refused with the words: “People have eyes!” The thing is: No they don’t! When you show a person an entire house in a minute and only mention the kitchen with the words: “This is the kitchen” you assume there’s an oven.
- Only two tea towels provided a day which is not enough so they end up soaked before the evening dishes. Also no places to hang the tea towels so they would be left on the kitchen table along with breadcrumbs and food scraps.
- The dishcloths were a joke. See picture.

- Half a shelf in a fridge is not nearly enough space. See picture.

- Ants invaded the kitchen from time to time. That meant we had to throw out our honey and jam because the ants where in them. When confronted with this problem the manager bought an ant-killer-spray in her lunch break and gave it to the tenant who complained. Then the tenant was welcome to solve the rest of the problem herself.
Our room
- It rained through our window. When confronted with this the manager said it would be fixed. When we left a month later – nothing had happened.
- We meet four cockroaches in our room in the two months and several in the bathrooms.
The managers
- The managers could swing in mood to the extremes. They would be chatting away, smiling and small talking and moments later they would snap at you because you didn’t close the front gate like it was made of glass and salt sticks.
- The managers were arrogant and treated us like children most of the time. Always communicating by notes they put up on the window in the kitchen. Somehow they got the idea that if something was very important writing it all in caps would get the message across more efficiently.
- When confronted with a problem they would often spend a lot of time talking about what earlier tenants did or did not do. When I requested an oven they said: “Well no one has requested an oven in the last six years so we are not going to get one now. Sorry!” Wow! What an argument! I rest my case! On top of this we know at least one other tenant who has requested an oven before us, so the statement from the managers was a downright lie.
- Richmond Lodge has an ad on trademe.co.nz where it says:

6 bedroom house with 3 bathrooms. [...] 8 existing flatmates.

Correction. Two bathrooms is available for the flatmates. Not Three. 8 flatmates? Try between 13-16.

In conclusion: If you are a backpacker and travelling in New Zealand and need a place to stay in Auckland, Richmond Lodge can be fine one or two nights. Never stay long term; it will suck the life power out of you until you become a zombie living on the rainwater from leaky windows and the food scraps you suck from filthy tea towels.

If any of the managers from Richmond Lodge are reading this and you find any of this information incorrect or fell I might have remembered some incidents wrong please don’t hesitate to contact me and I’ll gladly correct anything untrue in this text.