All welcome at 30-bedroom house

Texting can come in handy when living in the house of Dean and Marina Seager.

Not surprising, given their home is 760 square metres and has 30 bedrooms and seven toilets.

‘‘We often text each other when we are at opposite ends of the house,’’ Marina Seager said.

The couple bought their massive two-level Riverton home, the seaside town’s former home for nurses, in 2010, predominantly so people down on their luck could have a place to stay.

This week, Marina Seager, a Costco superfan, travelled more than 1650km to Auckland to get a bargain at the newly opened store.

Costco is a passion and it suits her lifestyle, she says, where everything ‘‘is huge’’.

However, with only a 40kg baggage allowance on her flight home, many of the items she bought were gifts for her family.

Some of the haul, including shampoos and soaps, will help in several bathrooms of the house.

The Christian couple, who are owners of a childcare business in Riverton, bought the property for $250,000.

At the time, they were parents of four school-aged children.

Suffice to say, there was space galore for the kids as well as visitors. The kids got two bedrooms each and still moved around rooms.

One of the rooms became a ‘‘wrestling and pillow fight room’’, another a library room with Dean’s many books, one room was for videos, and another has dozens of kids Nerf guns stored in it.

When they moved in, the building had not been lived in for 15 years, but it was still in reasonable condition, they said.

The couple installed a commercial kitchen, had 33 broken windows fixed, and put a bed in every room of the home, which they renamed Piringa, meaning shelter or refuge.

And that’s what it’s been for many people during the past 12 years.

People staying have included Te Araroa Trail walkers, a Fijian family stayed a couple of months when their work visas ran out, Auckland performing arts students nearly filled the place during a week-long stay, 11 people stayed during the first Covid-19 lockdown, and people ‘‘struggling in their own homes’’ had stayed.

‘‘My take on it is if someone needs somewhere to stay, we just say yes,’’ Marina said.

Also, three young foster children had stayed on and off for more than two years, others had stayed longerterm while working at Riverton, and exchange students from Europe had stayed.

The couple charged boarders a weekly fee, but not the others, though they accepted koha.

Their four children had since grown and left, with the couple now living at the home with their 10-year-old foster son.

As for cleaning a 30-bedrooom house, it was done as needed, without hired help.

‘‘I had one lady come in one day

to do two hours cleaning and she said it was too much for her,’’ Marina said.

Dean replied: ‘‘I think she was worried how much bigger the job would get.’’

Life in a massive house also came with massive bills; the roof needs replacing, at a cost of about $170,000.

But their plans to help other people had not waned; they recently had a self-contained flat installed upstairs to allow short-term stays for mums and their children who needed somewhere to safely stay short term.

When asked what they got out of using their home as a refuge for others, Dean, a security worker in Invercargill, said: ‘‘A lot of good stories and a bigger family.’’

Marina, who runs their childcare centre in Riverton, said: ‘‘I get energy from people, so I just love having people around.’’

‘‘My take on it is if someone needs somewhere to stay, we just say yes.’’

Marina Seager