Get a home's history before you buy or rent
5:12 p.m. Monday, November 17, 2008
"There were some burns on the floor from the chemicals...It stunk, discolored on the walls, holes in the walls everywhere."
After the investigators leave and the hazmat team has gone home, there are still little signs of what happened in one room of this Hutchinson home.
"Right over on that wall there was an entire section that was discolored so we tore it out completely," John Scott said.
You get 21 million hits in a Google search of how to make meth, but only six million to figure out how to clean up after it.
That's what John Scott had to do after learning the house he rented out had been used to make meth.
"Police really didn't say if there was any processes or procedures that we had to go through. We just took it as, if I was living here, what would I want done?" he said.
"No one has the funding to ensure that all of the places are cleaned up properly," Reno County Sheriff's Deputy Howard Shipley said.
Shipley works in the drug unit of the Reno County Sheriff's Office.
He says once he's done collecting evidence at a meth lab, it's the property owner's responsibility to do the rest.
"We hope that it will get cleaned up. Whether it does realistically, in a lot of instances, I doubt that it is, at least not very well," Shipley said.
And when you consider what's in the walls, the carpets, the air...
"Anhydrous ammonia vapors, ether vapors, hydrocloride gas vapors, which are dangerous or deadly at certain levels."
...a good, thorough cleaning won't come cheap, easily in the thousands of dollars.
"We'll end up with 5, probably 6, by the time its all finished," Scott said.
Scott ripped up the carpets and coated the floors with a sealant.
"If there's any residue, it's gone now."
He also cleaned, patched and plans to paint the walls.
"I don't know how many landlords would go to the extent that we do, in trying to make repairs and be open and honest," Scott said.
In fact, there's no law that says the landlord has to do either clean up or disclose a home's history. Any house could be a meth house and you wouldn't know it.
The only give-away is this list put out by the Drug Enforcement Agency. That's how we found Scott's home.
But Shipley says the list is incomplete.
"For Reno County, I am certain there's more than that," Shipley said.
Scott has told his new tenant about the dangers they've wiped away from this upstairs room...
"We just feel like it's the thing to do. I don't know why you wouldn't," Scott said.
...as he works to give this home, with a new tenant, a second chance.
The National Clandestine Laboratory Register, anational registry of places where meth labs have been discovered, was created in 2006, so it doesn't include labs found before that date.
Besides checking the list, you can also contact your local police or health department who can look up more information about an address.
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