The report, produced by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) and published yesterday, comes after officials inspected just 37 boarding houses across the whole country — none of them in Dunedin.
Ten were in Queenstown and one was in Invercargill.
The inspections were focused on boarding houses three storeys or higher where fire safety could be at risk.
The report was instigated following the fatal fire at the boarding house Loafers Lodge in Wellington last May that killed five people.
Cr Sophie Barker said the report shone a light on problems in some boarding houses.
However, a national review of all boarding houses, including in Dunedin, was required because "it’s ridiculous to limit national scrutiny of boarding houses to three storeys or higher. Two storeys is still too far to jump".
The MBIE review identified more than 134 problems, with nearly seven out of 10 related to fire safety.
Only half the smoke detectors checked were working, with many having dead batteries or the entire alarm mechanism removed, leaving only the case.
Poor escape routes were a "major concern" in some buildings.
Cr Barker said the actual scale of problems was probably "exponentially bigger", given so many problems were found by the MBIE review in so few boarding houses, and there were so many other boarding houses and other dangers in boarding houses as well as fire.
An investigation into Dunedin’s boarding houses by the Otago Daily Times last year found squalid conditions, including damp and ancient carpets, leaking roofs, broken windows, filthy rooms and ill tenants.
Some tenants were elderly and had lived in them for decades, while others had serious mental illnesses and addiction issues, in some cases presenting serious risk to each other.
Night shelter manager David McKenzie said he supported Cr Barker’s call for a wider review of all boarding houses if it meant poor accommodation was identified and improved or replaced with better accommodation.
"At the moment, homeless people are having to live more and more in tents outside because of the lack of housing.
"There must not be a vacuum of decent places to stay at the lowest end, for the people with the most biggest need."
MBIE’s head of building system, delivery and assurance, Simon Thomas, said the MBIE report had enabled some change to happen already.
Some issues had already been resolved after being pointed out by the MBIE-led team.
However, the report said councils were not consistently defining boarding houses. Neither did they necessarily know where they were.
This "raises concerns for the ability to regulate this sector and ensure the safety and welfare of tenants".
The buildings inspected ranged in height up to 14 storeys, but more than half were three storeys. The number of beds in them ranged from five to 350.
