Murdoch Stephens’ 2020 debut novel Rat King Landlord is set in Wellington, where Mr Stephens — raised in Waitepeka, near Balclutha — now lives.
It tells the story of a group of flatmates and the rat which goes from being a household pest to their live-in landlord.
Many people had identified with the book and several months after it was published Mr Stephens approached Wellington-based advocacy group Renters United about doing an illustrated edition of the book.
Earlier this year, 10,000 copies were printed in a tabloid format.
"We wanted to find a way to get a really cheap, low-frills version of it done for their members and to share around as a way to raise awareness about their work," Mr Stephens said.
Mr Stephens was a fan of the the group’s pragmatically dogged approach and the book took aim at renters who complained without doing anything.
It also satirised the worst excesses of the property management industry.
"I'm not saying all landlords are rats. I'm saying this is what happens when one rat becomes a landlord," Mr Murdoch said.
His own experiences flatting at the University of Otago had helped inspire the book.
His first flat was in a George St villa with a group, all about 19 or 20 years old.
While his landlord was also young, he had not wanted to pay for a property manager or to trust the tenants to do upkeep.
In their first week, he showed up with a truck and threw bark chips on the lawn so it would not need mowing.
It took just three months for the grass to start coming up again.
"It became this weird bark-chip grass jungle, where you couldn't mow it anymore, because the bark chips were right there — you just had to take a weed whacker to it," Mr Stephens said.
The flat also had a rat, which Mr Stephens killed in an ugly incident.
Six months later, he became a vegetarian.
"It’s not a pretty sight — the trap doesn’t always kill the rat," Mr Stephens said.
Over the two decades since he lived there, the flat had had an extra bedroom added without any structural changes and rent had increased from $55 to $250.
While the student flatting experience was a rite of passage for many New Zealanders, it was less idyllic when people were trapped in substandard rentals well into their adult lives.
About 500 copies were given away by Mr Murdoch and Renters United on the Union Lawn yesterday, which was followed by a Dunedin launch event at Yours.
The new edition had been on and off the Unity Books bestseller list for the past few months and had also made the national bestseller list for a week — although it was kind of cheating since copies sold for $2, Mr Stephens said.
