Noxious Emissions from Your Neighbours' 'Wood' Burners? Here Are the Rules.

Back around New Year, when the temperatures were baking hot and the sun was scorching, I considered the timing ideal to haul out an almost boutique's worth of beautiful clothes I'd had in storage, since my globe-trotting lifestyle got placed on a decade-long hold.

Now, my washing machine happens to be housed in my garage. So here I was - on this beautiful hot and sunny mid-summer day - with colour-sorted clothes, many bagged up in delicates bags, and hundreds of wooden coathangers strewn around my large back garden . . . a park-like back garden overlooked directly by an imposing big two-storey house with only a tiny back yard of its own . . . and a woodburner's chimney that directs pretty much straight down onto my washing line.

I was out there, on that baking hot day for hours (and hours and hours) putting the painstakingly sorted clothes through short gentle cycles and then strategising how on earth to get them all onto one Hills hoist clothes line . . . which I achieved with considerable ingenuity, involving but not limited to, clothes hangers hanging off of clothes hangers and garments pegged vertically, horizontally, and diagonally.

The Most Toxic Woodburner Fumes I've Ever Smelled . . . On This Mid-Summer Day

Finally, I went indoors. Emerging to check with pride and satisfaction on my productivity and creativity a couple of hours later, I found (wait for it) the neighbours' wood burner (you know, the neighbour with the large windows that look straight down onto my yard) pumping out the most toxic fumes I've ever smelled a wood burner emit. On this mid-summer day.

To cut the rest of the story mercifully short, I've spent the ensuing seven or so weeks washing, re-washing, washing, re-washing and repeating that same cycle over and over again - as I pull yet another lot of stench-permeated clothes from one of the large airtight sealed crates and other containers I have had to source to seal them up in, in the interim . . . although they'd already stenched out my living room in the meantime.

Truly, they smelled PUTRID. After multiple re-washings I've had to surrender to defeat and some have had to be thrown away. I'm STILL going through the process (the smoke-out having occurred YET AGAIN while I was in the re-washing and re-hanging-out process). And some have been washed so many times that they've lost their structure.

My initial response to the occurrence was to hand the neighbour a bag of freshly picked plums over the back fence and a sugar-sweet plea for future consideration . . . explaining, particularly, the very special nature of the hundreds of clothing items I was trying to process (or now, re-process).

Freshly-Picked Plums & An Uber-Polite Plea Didn't Work

With the repeating of the incident (the plums and the plea didin't work), I finally wrote to the neighbour, telling them of the days and days I've spent trying to save as many of my beautiful (and some especially sentimental) clothes as possible, and the hundreds of dollars I have spent on multiple large bottles of eucalyptus oil, peppermint oil, Dettol, commercial-sized boxes of washing powder, containers and new delicates bags. And that's without even considering the monetary value of the trashed clothing that I've had to throw away, and that which I might yet still have to assign to the wheelie bin.

But . . . it's all fallen on completely unsympathetic ears, shall we say.

A letter arrived (in response to my own request) saying - in essence - that they'd be doing it again any time they wanted. What's more, the letter read (and I have no idea why this was included, but here we go), they'd be taking down their net curtains across their back windows. Maybe I'm meant to find that threatening or something. I don't. What I do find it, is astounding how little regard the home's inhabitants must have for their own privacy. All I can say is, I do hope they don't get around their house naked. It wouldn't be something I'd be keen that I or any of my visitors should witness.

In the irony of ironies, while I was in Wellington yesterday, the not-so-neighbourly-neighbours over the back - or one of the property's apparently quite numerous inhabitants of various age groups - apparently turned up at my door wanting to involve my attending tradespersons, in my absence, in the matter. What said woman - with her letter in hand - didn't know, was that said tradies were here (a) getting a previously non-opening window opening again to get some additional rectifying airflow through the house, and (b) trying to work out where to relocate my washing line to i.e. out of the reach of said neighbours' noxious emissions.

The Word from the Local Council

Now, in the meantime, quite a few people have become acquainted with my clothes recovery mission . . . from the local chemist who recommended the eucalyptus oil, to the friend who came to help me sort those that were intended for a recycling boutique, to a few other friends who visited and commented on the smell of the clothes, and/or who asked why I had large containers of clothes around the house. (Oh, AND my neighbour on one side, who had advised that he wouldn't exercise in his driveway such was the stench in the air on the day in question.)

Those who braved the up-close sniff test, advised me to call the local Council and ask what the policy was concerning the burning of rubbish in domestic wood burners.

So I did. And here is part of the core intel provided by the Council's Environmental Services Manager:

Firstly, this is an issue which is covered extensively in the Health Act 1956, Section 29 Nuisances, and Part 4 of the Bylaws - Prevention of Nuisance from Fire and Smoke.

At any time, therefore, writes the department head, an affected resident should:

" . . . telephone (number provided) and log a service request about a smoke nuisance, this will then be logged for one of the Environmental Services Team to attend.

"The Customer Services Team will then load the service request, with the details you have provided and pass this onto an Environmental Services Team Member.

"An Environmental Services Team member will attend the property and make an assessment of the discharge to air, if it is still occurring when we arrive. They may engage with the owner if they are home to gather more information. We will educate the owner about not burning rubbish in their fireplace.

"If the issue continues, we may engage the support of the Greater Wellington Regional Council in relation to illegal discharge air."

Regional Council Takes Serious Approach to Air Pollution from Home Heating

Greater Wellington Regional Council works under the Resource Management Act 1991 and has a specific air pollution hotline.

From GWRC's website:

"Concerned about air pollution?

"If you are being affected by unpleasant or excessive amounts of chimney smoke, dust or agrichemical spray, call our Environmental Hotline on 0800 496 734.

"We measure levels of air pollution from traffic and home heating emissions and check that our air quality meets national standards and guidelines to protect the health of our communities.

"Everyone deserves clean air to breathe. Breathing polluted air can lead to respiratory (lung) and cardiovascular (heart) problems. Children and the elderly are especially vulnerable to air pollution. We can all be part of keeping our air clean."

The Ministry of the Environment has guidance about wood burners and the rules here:

https://environment.govt.nz/guides/authorised-wood-burners/frequently-asked-questions/

"My neighbour’s chimney is producing a lot of smoke, what can I do?"

"Your local regional council may have rules in its regional plan that prohibit or limit smoke from chimneys. You can call your regional council and bring this to their attention.

"Smoke from home heating appliances such as wood burners causes increases in ambient air pollution which can cause adverse health effects in your community. If the appropriate fuel is burned (such as only firewood in wood burners) and if it is used correctly, this can help minimise pollution."

"Can a wood burner be exempted from complying with the National Environmental Standards for Air Quality?"

"No. The standards were introduced to ensure a baseline level of national consistency. Allowing exceptions to the National Environmental Standards for Air Quality would go against the intent of the standards and would compromise their integrity."

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Massey’s Vet ‘Hospital’ Staffed by Unqualified Juniors Administering Drugs At Will, Committing Serious Animal Cruelty, Falsifying Diagnoses, Records & Coercing 'Euthanasia'

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Editor’s Conclusion : Unqualified. Unsupervised. Unaccountable. And Still Accredited.

UPDATED 10.3.26: WAITING, MASSEY . . . Are You Going to Comply with Your Legally Required Information-Release Obligations?

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UPDATED: 10.3.26 Will This Badly Behaving Institution Finally Allow the Full Truth to Be Revealed?

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MASSEY VETS FALSIFY RECORDS: POLICE REPORT FILED

by Jordan Kelly • 27 February 2026

Readers following the coverage of my attempts to get to the bottom of what happened to my beloved little papillon, Harry, with whom I was extraordinarily closely bonded, will know that: (A) The rot in Massey University’s Companion Animal “Hospital” (CAH) runs deep. (B) Honesty and transparency is not their policy. Denial, dismissal, stonewalling, legal threats and intimidation are. (C) Animals aren’t safe there, with cruelty embedded in “care”, and your property (as your pet legally is) not considered your property at all, as far as Massey, its CAH staff and management are concerned. Your pet is theirs ; to do with as they please, according to their mindset and their modus operandi. And if that involves catastrophic levels of unauthorised, contraindicated, convenience sedation to facilitate their use of your pet in monetised student video collections (including on private cell phones, and to which you will be given no access), this too, according to Massey, is its own God-given right and “best practice” Standard Operating Procedure. (D) “Informed Consent” has a very different meaning in the Massey playbook to that which is generally deemed its accepted definition. (E) “Accountability” is a foreign concept and not one with which they have any intention of becoming acquainted. (F) Laws – including those governing animal welfare, property conversion and more – are not only optional, in Massey’s case, they simply don’t apply. In fact, they appear blissfully ignorant of them according to my (and Harry's) experience. You know all that. You’ve read about it here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here and in most of my other now 30+ articles covering the numerous different sub-atrocities within the overall atrocity that was the demise and disposal of my precious little Harry. Actually, "atrocious" doesn't come anywhere near to being an adequate adjective. Despite having been a professional writer since I was 16 and having upwards of 25 published books under my belt, I don't actually have an adjective that's adequate for the pure evil that was perpetrated upon Harry . . . and, by extension, me . There is not one word or one phrase that can sufficiently convey the depth and breadth of the sheer, unadulterated wickedness that festers without restraint within the walls of Massey University's Companion Animal "Hospital". What you, my readers (or those of you not on Massey's massive legal team payroll) didn’t yet know – because I didn’t yet know – is that record and evidence tampering (which, for any other New Zealand citizen would attract jail time of up to 10 years under the Crimes Act 1961 Section 258 (Altering document with intent to deceive) or Section 260 (Falsifying registers) , and/or a $10,000 fine under the Privacy Act Section 212(2)(b) - appears also to be included in the “we’re exempt” culture of Massey and its veterinary “hospital” staff. Note to Readers: The above laws aren't some hypothetical, bottom-drawer, dusty old legal tracts in archaic library textbooks. They're real, "living" laws that apply to every individual in our country. And today, they are being made to apply to Dr Stephanie Rigg and her "colleagues" who falsified Harry's records to create a cover-up of what they did to him . . . and to me. I will, duly, see Dr Rigg and her associates in Court. Dissecting the Cover-Up: Massey’s Metadata of Deception But back to what readers do know for a moment: You’ll know that I’ve been in the battle of battles for the past two months to extract Harry’s full records (or anything approaching them) from Massey’s Legal and Governance department. HOWEVER . . . there was one thing I hadn’t known how to decipher that they actually had finally drip-fed to me. It was File Name: Patient Change Log (Field-Level Audit) . I’ve been learning a lot about veterinary science, record-keeping, and law in general lately. Not because I wanted to. But because if you want to figure out how deep the rot really runs at Massey, you kind of have to. So I’ve learned a bit about how to decipher clinical metadata. Just e nough to realise that this Patient Change Log (Field-Level Audit) is exactly where the digital fingerprints of a cover-up are hiding. Despite the fact that this document has as much redacted as it shows (probably more), with ALL staff names and positions blacked out, for example -I still found four distinct “smoking gun” entries in these otherwise heavily-redacted metadata logs. BIG. FAT. SMOKING. GUNS. that amounted to one undeniable overall conclusion: This document isn’t a clinical record so much as it’s a literal crime scene . There were already so many dodgy inconsistencies in the few items I'd managed to pull out of Massey to that point (as I've documented in various of my preceding articles). But this document is where, undeniably, the bodies are buried. You just need to know which clod of dirt to look under. Hidden in Plain Sight . . . In A Little Thing Called the Metadata (That the Average Pet Owner Wouldn't Even Know Existed ) There are four hidden but key findings demonstrating that the entire timeline of Harry’s “experience” in that hellhole were was orchestrated, and the sudden "neurological event/decline" exit strategy planned for him were a total fabrication. And that fabrication had a start time. (For this start time we will initially revert our focus back to Massey's previously-supplied "Clinical Summary" (in all its dodginess) . . . We will then lead from the immediately below into the afore-mentioned "Patient Change Log (Field-Level Audit)". Bear with me. I promise not to let this get boring). Well, one of two start times. Either: (1) The 8.38am disconnection of his (with, by-then, the TWO 750% overdoses of the renally contraindicated convenience sedative with which the "crying dog"-sensitive ICU staff had plied him overnight) now life-essential IV fluids (8.5 hours into the prescribed 24-hour protocol that they charged me for). And/or: (2) When the day shift ICU "vet" arrived at 9am and decided a THIRD 750% overdose would be a strategic way do deal with a clearly already massively overdosed little 3.8kg, 15-year-old, dehydrated dog. Now WHY would any vet take such a decision? Well, for legal purposes, of course (remembering that the Venerable Dean Jon Huxley and the obviously not- so-new-broom Vice-Chancellor Pierre Venter, have all the money in the public purse to pay their top-tier external legal counsel . . . and by gum, there are enough of the buggers, if this site's analytics are anything to be guided by), I will precede the following by stating that these are my conclusions, made on the basis of the collation and evaluation of the information before me. That said, what I know of my readers is this: You are no intellectual slouches. Feel free to let me know if you can come up with any other conclusion from the information (complete with now numerous "receipts") that I have thus far presented, most especially here and here , and most tellingly of all, in today's expose. R emember, though, I held the ultimate evidence in my arms at 6pm on December 1 . . . and, some 45 minutes later, I let them take it (safely, for them) away from me, just like Harry's (the literal body of evidence) life had just been taken from him. Little Numerals that Tell A BIG Story The plan for Harry's manufactured exit is not so much written into the records, as it is revealed by the tampering with the logs. They lay bare the lead vet’s apparent plan that his life would come to an abrupt end by the pre-scheduled time of (well, they couldn't quite get consistency in the logs regarding the exact minute, but by the absolute latest time of) 17:00 hours i.e. 5pm . . . assumedly, the end of the day shift on December 1. Just in time to mark him "Deceased" and seal off the records of this catastrophically overdosed patient, before the next shift came on, saw his records, and someone started asking the immediately necessary, and certainly appropriate, questions. And those questions would (0R SHOULD ) have included , but would certainly not have been limited to: How long has this dog been in this state? Why hasn't any rescue and remediation protocol been undertaken? Why was he given yet ANOTHER administration of 50mg of Gabapentin at 09:00 hours after the preceding two during night shift? Why is he disconnected from his IV fluids? Who approved that and why? (And if they knew he'd starred in a multi-video student film festival that morning): Was he taken out of his cage and handled in this state? When did he last drink? Was he given any food before he entered this near-comatose state? Does the owner know of the overdoses and the state he's in? Have you filled in an incident report? Have any emergency specialists been called in for advice? and, no doubt, many more questions. OR . . . maybe not. It depends if the rot in that ICU is fully immersive, or if it's concentrated on Dr Stephanie Rigg's day shift and the ICU shift staff of the preceding (November 30) night. But none of those questions could be asked and none of that could happen. The day shift - led by "Dr" Rigg ("Steffi") - wasn't about to let it happen. Thus, the pre-timestamped, just before end-of-shift, Time of Death entered into the "Euthanasia Authorisation" form that they had all queued up for me long before I ever arrived at that Godforsaken facility that fated December 1 afternoon.

(UPDATED) PROOF: Massey Vet, Teaching & ICU Staff INTENDED Harry to Die & Were Actively Facilitating It . . . & the VCNZ Has A MASSIVE Conflict of Interest

by Jordan Kelly • 17 February 2026

Harry WAS A Marked Dog. I Had Hoped Massey Vet Staff Couldn't Have Been Any More Wicked Than They'd Already Been Caught Out Being. But YES , Actually, They COULD .

CATASTROPHIC 750% OVERDOSING & DEATH . . . Gross Malpractice, Deception & Management Malfeasance at Massey

by Jordan Kelly • 15 February 2026

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FOR LATEST INVESTIGATION FINDINGS: GO HERE . My Precious Little Boy Died Needlessly, In Intense Physical, Mental & Emotional Agony . . . After Massive Overdosing, Intense Cruelty & Intentionally False Diagnosis by Massey 'Vet' (So Called) to Enable His 'Disposal' After Lab Rat-Style Experimentation

Massey University's Upside-Down Prioritisation of Taxpayer Funds: Fiscal Malfeasance & the TRUE Cost of Institutional Arrogance

by Jordan Kelly • 11 February 2026

While my focus is on the 750% overdosing of my precious little dog, Harry, with an unauthorised, contraindicated convenience sedative, his conversion from patient to live specimen, and the subsequent destruction of evidence (HIM), Massey’s focus is on deploying a taxpayer-funded legal hit squad to 'profile' me.

ICU Vet, Massey Neurologist & Dean of School: Dangerously Deficient or Just Plain Dangerous?

by Jordan Kelly • 8 February 2026

An Expert Contributed Commentary (FOR LATEST INVESTIGATION FINDINGS, GO HERE .)

Breathing in Foul-Smelling Emissions from Over the Fence? House Filling up with Toxic Fumes? Getting Your Washing Smoked Out? Here Are Your Rights.