“What Does My Landlord Own?” is a website that allows users to enter an address and see other properties tied to that owner. The website was launched early this year by an anonymous team known as “sunset_flowers” determined to “help address the vast inequalities present in Aotearoa by turning the focus to landholders”. Critic Te Ārohi sat down with two representatives of sunset_flowers to understand some of the inner workings of the website and the surrounding controversy.
Currently, if you Google the website, you won’t find what you’re looking for. It doesn’t show up in the search results. Fear not, you can access the website directly via this link: https://whatdoesmylandlordown.org/.
The website hit the ground running, going viral instantly. “[We had] over 15,300 unique users in the first 4 days,” said Jordan*, as well as a whopping 75,000 searches in the first 48 hours. Within a short couple of months, over 18,000 people used the tool, totalling over 191,000 searches as of February 22nd. “In the recent week our traffic has calmed to around 1,000 unique users per day, averaging around 3,000 searches per day,” said Jordan. For sunset_flowers the popularity of the tool is “evidence of the dream it presents, one in which renters and communities can challenge the vast power of private landholders.”
According to the website, the tool provides an “understanding of the wealth divide and pathways for collective responses”. Kat* said, “Without collective understanding, it’s hard to imagine the right way forward.”
The site makes it crystal clear just how inequitably Aotearoa’s properties are divided; a cursory search for flats on Queen Street revealed that one landlord has hoarded over 40 properties in the neighbourhood, while the students living in these flats pay exorbitant rents. These rents, of course, can be used by the landlord to mortgage yet another property and expand their list.
Despite sunet_flower’s good intentions, the website has had its fair share of backlash. The website says that most complaints have been in the form of “angry, bigoted and often abusive comments” coming from “landlords, and those that believe in the status quo of meritocracy”. Meanwhile, server issues and “DoS” or cyber attacks possibly coming from paid servers have not made things easy for sunset_flowers.
Their job hasn’t been made easier by allegations of privacy breaches, either. The site uses the Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) database to source its property list, which is publically accessible. But “not a lot of people were aware that their information was in a database,” said Jordan, and it seems to have spooked some. Interestingly, there are existing tools aimed towards property developers and real estate agents such as Terranet and Property Guru which “allow for much more specific searches of personal data”, but these sites are paywalled. Despite this, the Privacy Commission has confirmed that the website is “under review”, but declined to comment further at this stage. In response, sunset_flowers said “Our tool has been met with many frivolous privacy claims because it targets landlords.”
Aotearoa has had landlords since it was colonised in the mid-1800s. The website states, “Since colonisation, systems of private land ownership have been continually used to entrench power structures, to benefit a minority.” In practice, this wealth hoarding can be seen through multi-property empires. However, it goes on to say that “one of the ways in which the wealthy avoid being challenged is through concealment, which enables them to downplay the power they have”.
Traditionally, all the money syphoned off of Queen or Castle Street has gone into some anonymous pocketbook. It was unclear who exactly was benefiting from this - until now.
Jordan and Kat advised students to “be aware of your rights and where rights have been breached”. Additionally, the developers noted the power of “relationships and solidarity”, saying that the tool could be used to “find others with the same landlord” in order to “organise, unionise, or just check in”. You can also reach out to OUSA student support for tenancy advice. For Kat, the “sun is setting on private land ownership”.