How to Avoid Meth Houses When Buying a Home

This probably isn’t something people think about off the bat when buying a house. People are typically more concerned with levels of lead, mold, and insect infestation, but not many people are aware of how dangerous it could be to buy a meth house. A meth house is a house that has been used to cook meth. Smoking, much less cooking meth can leave trace chemicals on the walls, floors, ceilings, carpets, and other parts of the house. Studies show that pregnant women exposed to trace chemicals from meth cooking can lead to giving birth children with congenital defects. Children and adults living in the house can suffer from nervous system issues, liver damage, and more. Meth houses have toxicity levels that can make the house uninsurable as well, which is dangerous to you and your family as well as brings the value of the house down significantly.

Some people think that when they buy homes in upscale neighborhoods, they won’t be at risk of buying meth houses. The truth is that meth houses are everywhere. They can be in abandoned buildings as well as in hotels. They can be in houses from bad neighborhoods as well as those in upscale neighborhoods.

Being proactive about determining the toxicity level of your house can help you weed out meth labs. Here are some useful suggestions you can try:

1. Double-check homes for sale from distressed markets. – Meth addicts, like people who get addicted to other drugs, often lose control of their lives in the most horrible ways. A lot of them end up losing their homes, which then end up in distressed markets. There are things that you can do to inspect homes being sold in distressed markets. Make sure that you are proactive about finding out what these things are, some suggestions follow.

2. Do your own sleuthing. – Investigate why the owners of the house you want to buy are selling the house. You can ask the real estate broker and additionally, you can ask the neighbors. Ask them whether the former owners had a history of being disruptive in the neighborhood. You can drop by the local police station and ask if there are any disturbances that happened in the neighborhood involving the house. Most meth houses are also sites of violence, rowdy parties, and the likes, although this may not always be the case.

3. Hire professionals. – The best recourse, of course, is to find people with professional training to help you out with determining whether the levels of toxicity in the house are dangerous. Getting an industrial hygienist would be your best bet. You can buy cheaper testing kits on the market but of course, professionals have more experience about where to look and they have better equipment.

Most states require sellers to disclose information like this to potential buyers, although it’s still best to be careful. Keep in mind that the seller of the home may not be the first owners of the home and they themselves may not be aware that their house has been a meth house before.

Jonathan Smith is a freelance writer who writes about real estate and other similar topics. See La Jolla homes for sale and La Jolla real estate quality listings from our site.