Bunnings Warehouse Wellington Central — Attraction in North Island

Highly rate this central downtown Bunnings on Tory Street as whilst they don't have the extensive range of the Mega stores in Lyall Bay, Porirua and Lower Hutt they carry a very impressive range across all hardware store categories, and it's rarely that I can't get what I am looking for - on occasions they have had items which Lyall Bay ran out of or couldn't find - recently I went to Lyall Bay Bunnings to get some stainless steel bits spikes for my building to deter pigeons from landing - was sent to 5 different aisles covering each end of the Mega store - no staff around to assist had to queue for 5 mins upon returning from each aisle visit to wait for customers to be served first at the help desk as no checkout operators and store short staffed - I finally gave up after 45 minutes of wasted time searching the store. The help desk lady at that time now working security and no one at the help desk (4pm on a Friday.....) struggled through WLG rush hour traffic to get to Bunnings in Tory (my normal go to store) and after being pleasantly greeted was escorted by a staff member directly to exactly the item that I was after. The staff are always helpful and personable at this store and it has a lovely atmosphere - it stems from the top and the store always seems to be doing things to improve their customers experience - a recent example being the expansion of the car park to effectively triple what was there before - To me without doubt it is the best hardware store in the central...

My experience here the other day wasn't very good at all because I asked where I could find a mouse trap and one of the staff members said aisle 40 upstairs so I went and looked and it was not there. Searched for help and no staff were upstairs, except for behind the staff only door... so I went back downstairs asked a different staff member and he was really nice and told me about a type of trap that can kill quickly and as less painful as possible and so I trusted that and bought a $15 mouse trap and went home. This trap wasn't working for 2 days because the bait was not strong enough, so I used my own and surely enough it worked within an hour or two. When I emptied this trap, the mouse was still alive, squeaking in pain and the trap only got his leg... I felt horrible because the staff member I talked to told me it would guarantee kill the mouse QUICKLY and as LESS PAINFUL as possible. I told him that I hated the idea of killing the mouse, I really would of preferred to catch and let free somewhere else but I trusted what he said and ended up having a horrifying night where this mouse was obviously in pain, wet and shaking and leg definitely broken. It was the worst thing that I ever had to experience but the problem is I shouldn't have had to experience that. I was assured of a product and ended up with...

Like most Monarch butterfly enthusiasts this time of year, I was desperate for more swan plants to feed the caterpillars. Plants are in short supply in Wgtn, so when Bunnings Porirua had more in stock, I called and asked for seven plants to be put aside for pick up later in the day. They were happy to do that.

When I went to collect them, the assistant found them in a trolley in the garden center. They hadn't been put aside as earlier stated and could've been purchased by someone else.

When I got them home, the bigger caterpillars wouldn't go on them. The smaller ones did and started eating the leaves. Next morning, all the little caterpillars on those plants had died. My daughter took two of the plants I purchased from Bunnings and her caterpillars died too, after eating the leaves. The plants had obviously been sprayed with insecticide for that to happen.

I have purchased swan plants from Tory Street Bunnings before and never had any problems with caterpillars dying.

Very distressing to see dead and dying caterpillars due to plants having been sprayed. They were all healthy before eating those plants. Not...