Quick answer
In New Zealand social-housing kitchens, child safety catches go on defined cupboards rather than every door: the under-sink cabinet where cleaning chemicals live, and the drawer that holds knives. The hardware is a simple internal catch fitted at manufacture. Catches are not a Healthy Homes requirement; programmes spec them because built-in safety hardware costs little and works in every house.
Key points
- The catches go where the harm is: the under-sink cupboard for chemicals and the knife drawer. Not every door, only the defined ones.
- The hardware is ordinary: an internal push-down or magnetic catch screwed inside the door or drawer, a few dollars of plastic doing a serious job.
- Child safety catches are not a Healthy Homes requirement. They are programme spec and common sense, which is a different thing, and worth being accurate about.
- Built in at manufacture they are a small coded line. Retrofitted across a scattered portfolio they are a booked visit per house, which is where the cost actually lives.
- Programmes standardise them because leaving safety hardware to tenant initiative means some houses have it and plenty never do.
On a coded social-housing kitchen schedule, the childproof catches are one of the smallest lines on the page: a per-No. item sitting down with the cutlery inserts, worth a few dollars of hardware against a package that lands in five figures. It is also the line with the biggest story attached, because it exists so that a two-year-old cannot open the cupboard where the bleach lives.
That gap between the size of the line and the size of the job it does is why the catches deserve a proper look. Which cupboards get them, what the hardware actually is, why programmes build them in rather than leaving them to tenants, and what a private landlord or a parent should copy from the spec. We fit these at the bench in our East Tāmaki workshop on every social-housing kitchen we build, so this is written from the fitting side, not the pamphlet side.
Which cupboards get catches
The spec names defined cupboards, not every door in the kitchen, and the definitions follow the hazards. Two locations do almost all the work.
- The under-sink cupboard. This is where a household keeps dishwashing liquid, bleach, dishwasher tablets, drain cleaner and spray bottles, at floor level, behind the door a toddler reaches first. It is the highest-risk cupboard in the house.
- The knife drawer. Usually the top drawer of the bank beside the cooking run, the one that carries the cutlery insert. A drawer version of the same catch stops it opening more than a crack.
Everything else generally stays free-opening. A catch on every door punishes the adults who use the kitchen fifty times a day and adds hardware that will be broken off within the year. The spec logic is narrow and right: contain the genuinely dangerous places and leave the rest of the kitchen usable. Pots, plates and the pantry hurt nobody.
Catches go where the hazards live: the under-sink cupboard and the knife drawer.
Are child safety catches required in NZ rentals?
No, and it is worth being accurate about this. The Healthy Homes Standards cover heating, insulation, ventilation, moisture and drainage, and draught stopping. Childproof catches are not on that list, and nothing in the tenancy rules names them either. A private landlord handing over a kitchen without catches is not breaking a standard. Where the kitchen genuinely does touch the standards, ventilation mostly, the Healthy Homes picture for kitchens is its own topic.
Social-housing programmes spec catches anyway, as programme standard rather than law. The reasoning is not complicated: the provider knows children will live in these houses across decades of tenancies, the hardware costs almost nothing at manufacture, and the alternative is hoping each household sorts it out themselves. Programme spec and common sense, not compliance. Treat any supplier who tells you catches are legally required with suspicion, and treat the cupboard full of bleach with more.
What the hardware actually is
Nothing exotic. The standard fit is an internal catch screwed to the carcass and the back of the door or drawer front, invisible with the door shut. Two families of hardware do the job.
- Push-down catches. A plastic hook lets the door open a few centimetres and then stops it; an adult reaches in and presses the hook down one-handed. Cheap, simple, nothing to lose.
- Magnetic catches. The lock sits inside the door and releases with a magnetic key held against the front. Tidier and stronger, and the key lives on the fridge until someone loses it.
Social-housing spec generally lands on the simple mechanical catch, because it needs no key and any adult defeats it first try while a toddler cannot. On a coded schedule the shape of the line is CHC400 childproof catches, priced per No., alongside a CJD800 cutlery insert in the same drawer bank. Small hardware, but specified hardware, which means it gets fitted, checked and replaced like everything else in the kitchen. That is the same thinking as choosing handles and hardware that survive tenants: the cheap moving parts decide how a kitchen ages.
Why programmes standardise it instead of leaving it to tenants
A tenant can buy stick-on catches from any hardware shop for a few dollars, so why put them in the spec at all? Because across thousands of tenancies, 'the tenant can sort it' means some houses get catches and plenty never do. The households most stretched are the least likely to get around to it, and they are often the ones with the most small children. A programme cannot inspect its way around that. It can spec its way around it.
Standardising also changes the economics of checking. When every kitchen has the same catch in the same two places, the inspection is a glance: open the under-sink door, feel the resistance, done. Left to tenants, every house is different and nobody can say what the portfolio actually looks like. The same logic drives the rest of the spec, from the stainless wet bench at the sink run to the 2 mm PVC edging on the doors: decide once, fit it everywhere, check it fast.
The catch is a few dollars of plastic. What you are buying is the certainty that every house in the programme has it.
Built in or retrofitted: where the cost sits
The part is cheap either way. The difference is entirely in the labour and the logistics, and it is a bigger difference than the hardware suggests.
| Built in at manufacture | Retrofitted in the field | |
|---|---|---|
| The hardware | The same few-dollar catch | The same few-dollar catch |
| Fitting | Minutes at the workshop bench, jig-drilled | A booked visit per house, access arranged with each tenant |
| Consistency | Same catch, same position, every kitchen | Whatever each visit found and fixed |
| Checking | One glance at inspection | Unknown until someone looks |
That is the whole argument for putting catches in the kitchen order rather than the maintenance budget. Built in, they cost a line on the schedule. Retrofitted across a scattered portfolio, the same catches cost a scheduled visit per house and a coordination job across tenants, with a share of missed appointments thrown in. If a kitchen or a drawer bank is being replaced anyway, the answer is automatic: catches go in at manufacture, the same way soft-close runners go in at manufacture, because small hardware fitted once at the bench beats small hardware fitted forty times on site.
For landlords and parents
If you own a rental and children live in it, or might, copy the spec: a catch on the under-sink cupboard and one on the knife drawer. Fit the internal kind if you can. Surface-mounted stick-on catches work for a while, but they peel, they mark the doors, and they read as an afterthought because they are one. Beyond the two catches, a few habits do more than any hardware.
- Move the worst chemicals up high anyway. A catch buys seconds; a top shelf removes the hazard. Drain cleaner and dishwasher tablets have no business at floor level, catch or no catch.
- Check the catches at every tenancy turnover. Plastic hooks fatigue and doors sag, and a broken catch protects nobody and reports itself to no one.
- Renew rather than argue. If a tenant has removed a catch, refit it at the next visit without a lecture. The next household may have a crawler.
- Look at the wider picture while the door is open, because the under-sink cupboard is also where a rental kitchen fails first: water staining on the base panel matters more than the catch does.
One line on the order
Getting catches into a kitchen is one line at order time: name the cupboards, count the catches, done. On a social-housing package the preset spec already carries them on the defined cupboards, priced per No. with the cutlery insert. If you are a landlord replacing a kitchen, add them when you order rather than after; if you are speccing a run in the online designer on our site, the catches ride along as their own line and price with everything else.
The knives and the bleach are the whole brief. Two cupboards, two catches, fitted once at the bench, checked in a glance for the next twenty years.
Frequently asked questions
Are child safety catches required by law in NZ rentals?
No. The Healthy Homes Standards cover heating, insulation, ventilation, moisture and drainage, and draught stopping; childproof catches are not on the list, and the tenancy rules do not name them either. Social-housing programmes fit them as programme spec, because the hardware is cheap at manufacture and the provider knows children will live in the houses. For private landlords they are good practice rather than a legal requirement.
Which kitchen cupboards should have childproof catches?
The under-sink cupboard and the knife drawer. The under-sink cabinet is where cleaning chemicals live at floor level, behind the first door a toddler reaches, and the knife drawer is the other genuinely dangerous place in the kitchen. Social-housing spec puts catches on those defined cupboards and leaves the rest free-opening, because a catch on every door punishes the adults and gets broken off within a year.
What type of catch is used in social housing kitchens?
A simple internal catch, screwed to the carcass and the back of the door or drawer front so nothing shows from outside. The common choice is a push-down hook: the door opens a few centimetres, stops, and an adult presses the hook down one-handed. Magnetic versions with a key exist and are tidier, but programmes tend to prefer the mechanical kind because there is no key to lose across a tenancy.
Is it cheaper to build catches in or retrofit them?
Built in, by a wide margin, and not because of the part. The catch costs a few dollars either way; the difference is fitting it in minutes at a workshop bench versus booking a visit to an occupied house, arranging access, travelling and re-visiting when the appointment is missed. Multiply that across a portfolio and retrofit is a project. If a kitchen is being replaced anyway, put the catches on the order.
Can tenants remove child safety catches?
Physically, yes: a screwdriver removes an internal catch and stick-on types peel off. In practice most internal catches stay put because they are invisible and barely in the way. The sensible landlord response to a removed catch is to refit it at the next inspection without drama, because the next household may have small children even if the current one does not. Checking catches at turnover takes seconds.
Do soft-close drawers make child safety catches unnecessary?
No, they do different jobs. Soft-close hardware stops drawers slamming on fingers and cuts wear on the runners, but it does nothing to stop a child opening the drawer in the first place. The catch is the thing that keeps the knife drawer shut against small hands. A well-specced rental kitchen carries both: soft-close for wear and fingers, catches on the defined cupboards for safety.
Where should cleaning chemicals be stored in a rental kitchen?
Ideally up high, out of a child's reach, with the under-sink cupboard kept for buckets, cloths and the dish rack. The catch on the under-sink door is a backstop for the way households actually live, because chemicals end up under the sink in most homes regardless of advice. Height removes the hazard; the catch buys time when someone forgets. Use both and neither has to be perfect.