How can you tell if you’re dealing with someone who’s a meth abuser or a meth lab cook? Observe their behavior.
According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, “In addition to being addicted to methamphetamine, chronic abusers exhibit symptoms that can include anxiety, confusion, insomnia, mood disturbances, and violent behavior. They also can display a number of psychotic features, including paranoia, visual and auditory hallucinations, and delusions (for example, the sensation of insects creeping under the skin). Psychotic symptoms can sometimes last for months or years after methamphetamine abuse has ceased, and stress has been shown to precipitate spontaneous recurrence of methamphetamine psychosis in formerly psychotic methamphetamine abusers.”
1. Frequent visitors at all times of the day or night, followed by periods where there are no visitors.
Meth users can stay awake for several days and nights without sleep. During those “awake times”, buyers will frequently visit the meth dealer’s home. Cash poor buyers often bring stolen goods to the meth dealer’s home to barter for methamphetamine. Electronic items and tools are popular replacements for cash. Meth cooks will often “signal” buyers when they have meth to sell by doing something like leaving a porch light on or creating some other visible sign outside of their house.
2. Visitors park far away from the meth lab house, even though there is parking available in front of the home.
Buyers don’t want neighbors or other people that they know to see their car parked in front of a drug dealer’s home and meth dealers don’t want alot of vehicles showing up at their house. Some meth buyers drive stolen cars, but that’s not true of all buyers. If the car has been stolen, the door lock may be punched out. Stolen cars may be dirty, but they will have clean license plates.
3. Activity at the house is usually at odd hours or late at night.
Meth cooks usually cook meth in the early morning hours when most people are sleeping. Meth lab cooks that use motel and hotel rooms to cook meth often cook meth somewhere between 1 a.m. and 4 a.m. Meth’s effect on users allow them to stay awake all day and all night for several days in a row, if they keep using more meth. Lack of sleep causes hallucinations and extreme paranoia.
3. Occupants appear unemployed, yet seem to have plenty of money and pay bills with cash.
Meth dealers get paid in cash and often with stolen property. Because of the laws limiting the sale of pseudoephedrine, meth dealers will also accept packages of pseudoephedrine as payment for meth.
4. Occupants are unfriendly, appear secretive about activities.
The last thing that a meth cook wants is a friendly neighbor stopping by and asking questions about anything they see or smell, or about them, for that matter.
5. Occupants watch cars suspiciously when they pass by.
Heavy meth users and meth cooks are always worried that someone is coming to get them and they want to be ready to a) make a quick escape or b) grab a weapon.
6. Occupants display a paranoid or odd behavior.
Heavy meth users who go without food and sleep for several days in a row are prone to hallucinations and paranoia.
7. Extensive security at the home.
“Private Property” or “Beware of Dog” signs may be posted as well as fences, large shrubs, bushes and trees. Security cameras may also be attached to the house, shed, barn, garage, etc. Anyone making and selling meth wants to know who is getting “too close” to finding out about their illegal activity.
8. Windows blackened or curtains always drawn.
Besides preventing anyone from seeing any signs of meth lab through their windows, they also prevent anyone from seeing the mess inside of their homes.
9. Occupants go outside the house to smoke cigarettes.
Meth lab cooks are smart enough to know that lighting a cigarette near the volatile chemicals inside their home or shed would be disasterous.
10. Chemical odors coming from the house, garbage or detached buildings.
11. Garbage contains numerous bottles, containers.
12. Coffee filters, bed sheets or other material stained from filtering red phosphorus or other chemicals
13. Occupant sets his garbage for pick up in another neighbor’s collection area.
14. Evidence of chemical or waste dumping (i.e. burn pits, or “dead spots” in the yard)
15. Meth users are extremely active. Methamphetamine gives the user alot of energy, making them very talkative and energetic. When 
they’re high on meth, they may be involved in several kinds of projects but seldom finish any of them.
For example, they may pull apart vehicles and other machinery with the intention of fixing them, but never complete the repairs.
Some meth lab homes have been found with graffiti painted on walls and ceilings. Meth gives them so much energy that they have to do “something”.
16. If the meth user / dealer/ lab cook has children or pets, they are typically neglected and in danger. Chemicals in meth lab homes are often left where children can reach them and drink them. Meth lab homes are full of toxic chemicals that are extremely dangerous to the health of children, whose immune systems are still developing.
During the times that the meth using parents crash by sleeping for days 
at a time, children and animals are often left to fend for themselves. During those times, many children don’t go to school. Older children often stay home from school to take care of their younger siblings, while their adult caretakers sleep.
Food may be scarce in a heavy meth user’s home, due to money being spent on drugs before food for their children and their pets. Meth users may also forget that children and pets need to be fed, as meth takes away their urge to eat.
Children may not be allowed to go outside without a parent or other adult present.
Originally published on March 13, 2009.
Can you tell me if you have ever heard of a meth lab refered to as “The Cafe”?
Can’t say that I have heard meth called that. It might be a reference to caffeine.
my next door neighbor is a meth tweaker off the show intervention im worried she may be making a meth lab in her backyard. i’ve seen her carrying what looks like big tanks for gasoline or some sort of liquid and put it in the back. she also always seems to have haggard looking people at her house at times. people who seem to be like twice her age and they are always around. she seems like she’s still on drugs cause of her eccentric activity and her sporadic conversations. i dont know what to do i want to call the police but i dont want to be wrong and look like a bad person
Sounds a lot like she’s back to using again and may be involved with manufacturing meth again, as well, according to what you’ve described. Are there children in the house or are there children going to her house? There are tremendous risks to children living in or around meth addicts and meth cooks, including sexual abuse and physical injuries including burns. The manufacture of methamphetamine is a serious public health and safety threat. Calling the police to investigate a situation that endangers others is the responsible thing to do if you suspect your neighbor is manufacturing meth, in my opinion.
Have you ever heard of meth cookers trying to disguise the smell of the cooking meth with cooking food at the same time? Once a meth user starts cooking how long does it take before it is completed? I have a neighbor who at irregular intervals cooks at nigh usually starting around 10:00PM and it always has a very strong dead skunk smell.
Lori,
Meth addicts aren’t usually interested in food, since the use of methamphetamine takes away their appetite, however the skunk smell that you’re smelling “may” be due to someone cooking meth. A commenter on my posting “Meth lab pictures for renters, realtors, home owners, home buyers” described the smell coming from their meth cooking neighbors as “They’ll be cooking tonite with various smells ranging from odor of paint thinner, dead skunk, and a really strange zoo like stench.”
According to my research, the time it takes to cook meth can range from 15 minutes to 48 hours depending on the method they’re using to make meth. Older methods of cooking meth, where they need to heat the ingredients, produces fumes and can take 48 hours to complete. Shake and bake meth or the one-pot method of making meth in a bottle, can be completed in as little as 15 minutes and doesn’t produce fumes.
Yup, they will burn trash or BBQ to cover the smell. My neighbors have been burning trash for 4 days straight and the young male is giggin hard.
So, I’m pretty sure my cousin has a meth lab going on in the garage, I’ve seen things that are odd, I’ve smelled things that are even more odd, and I’ve seen certain products I know we don’t use on a daily basis. I’ve also noticed every time there is salt brought into the house it is gone within a few days, I don’t want to call the police for there are people who are living in the actual house who are innocent bystanders like myself, but I’m not sure what else to do at this point. Does anyone have any suggestions?
Report your suspicions to the police. Meth labs are highly toxic and explosive. How will you feel if you don’t report it and your cousin dies because his (I’m assuming his) meth lab caught fire. Have you seen pictures of people who have been burned in a meth lab? It’s not pretty. Third and fourth degrees burns are common for meth lab burn victims and have caused the death of more than one meth cook. He is also inhaling very toxic chemicals that can cause him to get seriously ill, if not in the near future, in years to come. Also, how will you feel if another innocent bystander gets hurts or sick because of your cousin’s meth lab? If you really believe that your cousin is making meth, you should report him, in my opinion. He is playing with his life by making meth and he is putting the lives of others in jeopardy. It’s not likely that he’s going to stop making meth unless there is an intervention of some kind, like an arrest. Many meth addicts have told me that if they hadn’t been arrested, they would be dead right now.
You’re absolutely right, but if I report him, will everyone in the house be busted or just him? Like I said there are 4 of us who are totally innocent in this, and stay out of the garage, but since the garage is connected to the house, will we all be in trouble? I don’t want to get into trouble for something I have nothing to do with you know? How would I go about this without everyone being charged with possession or something?
That is why you ask to speak with an officer. They WILL advise you on what options to take and if you let them know who specifically it is – then they know who to look/ask for. If you sit and say/do nothing you will all be charged initially before interogation and hopefully then the charges dropped. Save yourself from 72 hours of un-needed jail time. Call and ask for advice.
My neighbors and I share one wall. About every three weeks starting at 10pm and ending around 3am there are drilling noises about every 3-4min consistently. Is that a sound that’s common with labs?
It could be. Meth cooks typically use food choppers aka food processors to grind up pseudoephedrine pills, which have a drill-like sound. If they are making meth, then it appears they’re making 3 weeks worth when they do make it.