Proposed meth lab cleanup legislation in Cuyahoga Falls Ohio is unfair to property owners
July 22, 2008
If Cuyahoga Falls city leaders have their way, property owners there will pick up the entire tab for meth labs. At a recent meeting about the meth lab problem there, Assistant Law Director Hope Jones told residents that they are considering making property owners responsible for paying the expenses incurred by the police department, meth lab testing fees, and the building department’s cost to vacate the property, in addition to the meth lab decontamination cleanup that are already placing financial burdens on property owners there and across the U.S.
Jones also told attendees of the meeting that the average cost of cleaning their meth lab home would set them back between $3,000 and $5,000. Yet, property owners across America would beg to differ with that estimate. Costs of cleaning up a home or other property that have been contaminated by meth can be 10 times what Hope has estimated it to be.
Cleaning up a meth lab home costs property owners much more than what property owners in Cuyahoga Falls Ohio are being told by city officials there.
Contamination from cooking meth in a home or other property can’t be accomplished merely by hiring a house cleaner to wash down the walls or shampoo carpets. Toxic fumes that rise up to the ceiling when meth is cooked, naturally falls to the floor covering everything in the home, including any furnishings in the home, clothing, toys, linens, towels, curtains and draperies, etc. One couple from Utah told us that is exactly what they had to do.
“We threw everything out that had been in the apartment, including things that we were told by the health department that they were safe. We tried saving things, but then after we were sick for so long, we realized that we needed to get rid of everything because our belongings weren’t helping us get better.”
Carpet and flooring in meth lab homes are often so contaminated with meth that they need to be ripped up and replaced, before they are considered safe. Meth fumes that fall to the floor lodge toxic chemicals in to carpeting and flooring in the home, chemicals that carpet shampoo can’t remove, chemicals that small children and pets can inhale and/or ingest. The cost of replacing all the flooring and carpeting in an average home can easily cost a property owner more than a few thousands dollars.
The walls within a home are also prone to absorbing heavy levels of contamination from the cooking of meth. In areas of heavy contamination, property owners have no choice but to replace those wall boards in order to comply with health and safety standards in their state.
Before cleaning up a contaminated property begins, it must first be tested by a certified testing company. Once the cleanup has been cleanup, the property owner must have the home tested again to see if it meets the state’s compliance levels.
My son had his home tested by a certified meth lab testing company in Tennessee. His cost? $1,600. After cleanup of his home was finished, an additional test was done. The cost for the follow-up test? Add another $1,600. If the second test proved that the home was still “hot”, guess what? Further cleanup would need to be done followed by another test for, you guessed it, another $1,600.
Dennis Bates, president of the Falls landlord council, says that landlords there are trying to learn as much as they can about the methlabs problem. They are also trying hard to screen renters of their property to avoid ending up with a methlab problem in the homes and apartments they rent.
Hotel owners in the area and across the country are worried too. Meth lab cooks like to rent motel and hotel rooms for a night, sometimes for a few hours, just to cook up a batch of methamphetamine before leaving the cleanup and associated costs for the hotel owner to pay. If I owned a motel, I’d be worried too.
Cuyahoga Falls Ohio need to consider that innocent property owners are already overburned with the financial and health consequences that result from owning properties contaminated by meth. The costs incurred by any city or town for police services and the building department should not also become a bill that property owners pay. Isn’t that what residents of cities and towns pay taxes for? Those who live in Cuyahoga Falls or in any other city or town in the U.S., for that matter, should not be made to pay for services rendered because of meth labs. If cities and towns start doing that, what’s next? Will home owners who have had homes burglarized have to pay a fee to the police department for the time it takes them to investigate, track down, and arrest the burglar? Or maybe you’ll get a service charge from the police when they pull you over for a speeding ticket? If Cuyahoga Falls residents let their city officials put the cost of public service on their plate, they’d better be prepared to start paying for other public services too! What Cuyahoga Falls officials are trying to do is nothing short of outrageous.
For more information, please visit Ohio.com and see their article entitled “Falls targets landlords for methlab cleanup” By Gina Mace and Katie Byard
Comments
One Response to “Proposed meth lab cleanup legislation in Cuyahoga Falls Ohio is unfair to property owners”
What do you think?
First of all, the clean up of a meth lab should never be the governments responsibility unless they decide to take a larger step in prosecuting the meth makers. Currently the crime is a F-5 very low on the totem pole. This should be a special law against manufacturing meth or being caught with meth. 20 years first offense plus restitution to the owner, a bond should be in place and all landlords should have to pay for participation in this bond as a local insurance policy. The taxes on all rentals should go up $75 per month to cover the possible meth exposure and the Landlord only be eligible if he has used a standard screening policy such as credit report, last residence landlord recomendation, and criminal history, The tenant if failing the last test should be allowed to continue to have a place to live aas long as he can get a bond from an insurance company or the local law enforcement can screen him further to see if that person can rent there. The cost for a clean up is $7,000.00 - $50,000.00 per home or residence and can exceed these numbers based on levels and square footage. I have a general idea I am a certified meth cleaner and second response team.