Wet, Wet, Wet.

It's wet here in Auckland, terribly, terribly wet. And it's not just the lily-livered Australian complaining about it - even though it seems to rain all spring, every spring, every year, the Aucklanders are over it too. 

To top it off there's a storm the size of Australia heading our way. Heavy rain, severe gales and a load of snow down south.

How will this shrink wrapped house fare?  This is not a Christo... it's one of Auckland's famous leaky homes.

 It does look a little Christo-esque. Remember this?

Berlin's Reichstag building in 1995. It's a similar look but the Auckland home I came across in a very smart suburb is not art, just the reality of leaky home ownership.

During the nineties a lot of houses in New Zealand were built using methods that just don't stand up to the rain and there is a LOT of rain and it comes with force from all directions. A combination of poor design, bad installation and the wrong materials has meant that some people are stuck with a house that leaks - damp, mouldy and rotting with water running down the walls. Some simply can't be fixed. What a nightmare.

There's been an inquiry, compensation battles, long running court cases....  a lot of people looking for someone to sue. Although I suppose there's now a booming new sideline in shrink wrap.

We didn't buy a leaky home.  Ours is just damp - incredibly damp, this is just an incredibly damp city. And yes I am over it this month.

Meet Derek. Derek is our dehumidifier.

He hums away night and day while the rain pours down and shifts around the house to dry each room. He's handy too for drying a load of washing. If we stay longer in this house we'll look at installing a proper roof ventilation system. For now it's up to Derek.

Auckland sparkles in the sun. Bring on summer and another drought. Please...