Emails show the mayor of Lower Hutt was told in February that bad plumbing in a retirement complex was life-threatening.

But earlier this week, before the emails and plumbing audit were released to RNZ acting on a tipoff, mayor Ray Wallace claimed he was told only that there were "a few issues with leaks", and these were "operational matters".

All 96 apartments, worth up to $700,000 each, at the Masonic Woburn apartments had plumbing that two lots of investigations said was a severe or serious health risk.

The emails also show most repairs did not start for eight months, and the council refused to go on site to inspect the repairs out of fear of liability.

Robin Wright quit as the maintenance manager at the adjoining rest home last November, partly in disgust at what went on since he was first alerted in May 2018.

"Some people who owned one of the apartments called out to me and said, 'Rob, we have an extremely bad smell over in our apartment'.

"So I went over and had a sniff and I said, 'Yeah, crikey I said it smells like sewage'. And they said, 'That's what we're thinking' ... I said, 'It's mainly in your kitchen'."

He called in certifying plumber Mike Stevenson, and their checks revealed nine apartments had faulty floor wastes or traps that were not sealed with water (like an S-bend in a toilet) so had been venting from the sewer since construction.

Another 20 wastes in shared areas were also not sealed.

Residents told Mr Stevenson of frequent foul smells in the complex's communal bar and meeting area called Bar West, and he established this came from two faulty wastes.

Next, they found all the showers had bad drainage.

"So we put a piece of wire in underneath, and found we could go the whole width of the shower and we pulled it up, moss and mould and gunge out of there."

If it had been his own, or his parents' shower, he would have been worried. "Yes, hell, yes," Mr Wright said.

They also found backflow preventers were missing and untempered public-access taps had scalding hot water.

The Masonic Villages Trust has said tests that it would not release showed there had never been any health hazard.

Sewage smell comes from hydrogen sulphide which can cause respiratory and other problems at chronic low levels of exposure.

Wallace wrote an email in February this year, immediately after the investigating plumber Mr Stevenson had phoned him, to council chief executive Tony Stallinger.

"I have just had a call from the tradesman who has worked on the Masonic facility ... he has said this building has serious and dangerous compliance issues," Mr Wallace wrote.

"He has said he notified Hutt City Council in July 2018 and believes nothing has been done about this life-threatening issue. Can you please advise what the council is doing."

Earlier this week, before the emails came out, Mr Wallace told RNZ that Mr Stevenson "didn't really identify himself" in that call, that the problems were "operational" only, and "an issue for the Masonic Trust and their private residents and tenants".

Yesterday he issued a statement: "The mayor was contacted by a concerned person ... and immediately referred them to the then-chief executive ... to follow up as it was an operational matter.

"The mayor was subsequently advised that officers were taking the matter seriously and communicating regularly with the property manager as repairs were carried out."

The February emails show the chief executive told the mayor this, but also that the trust wanted the repairs inspected.

"Repairs are being done, albeit probably not to Mike's [Stevenson's] satisfaction," Mr Stallinger wrote to the mayor.

"Note, we won't be inspecting that work as it does not require a building consent. In fact we advised against going on site to inspect as we could assume some liability in that circumstance."

In fact, the major repairs had commenced only two weeks before this email, on 28 January, eight months after the first discovery.

The emails show the trust was tied up with legal, architectural, and engineering issues.

The repairs still are not finished.

Read the full article on RNZ here