The Lurking Dangers of Renovating old Meth Labs
Our ‘P’ Legacy
Unless you have been living under a rock for the last decade, you will be aware that New Zealand has a serious problem with ‘P’ (Meth), however, few builders give any thought to theimplications of meth labs being set up in homes around the country.
When we look to buy, rent or take a job renovating a property, the fact that it may have been occupied by meth criminals occurs to very few, but there are thousands and possibly tens of thousands of homes that have been meth labs in the past. Meth manufacture, and its prolonged use, results in chemical contamination within a building that has serious health implications for people working and living there at a later date.
Any property MAY be Meth affected, unless it can be shown otherwise, and if you’re working in a meth-affected house, you could become seriously ill from the toxic chemicals and it can even kill you.
Health and Safety Implications
The Ministry of Health Guidelines for the Remediation of Clandestine Meth Lab Sites includes the following:
“Exposure to the chemicals and by-products of illicit drug manufacture of methamphetamine can cause serious adverse health effects, and in extreme cases, be fatal.”
While the serious side effects can take years to show, they do happen.
John Gray, President of HOBANZ, knows of at least one builder who is dying as a result of exposure to meth lab chemicals.
For those who think this would never happen to them, have you have ever come off a job and experienced any of the unexplained symptoms shown below?
• Headaches
• Watery or burning eyes
• Nausea
• Burning skin
• Coughing or Choking
• Pain in diaphragm
• Feeling of coldness or weakness
• Shortness of breath / dizziness
• Decrease in cognitive function
• Vertigo
• Convulsions
• Sleep disorders
If you have, there is a good chance you have been working on a property that has been contaminated by meth.
The Scale of the Problem
Meth contaminated properties are an undeniable fact. The only question, is how big an issue is it? A contact in the insulation game has said that his teams refuse to work on 1 in 20 properties in South Auckland, due to obvious signs of chemical contamination!
Reasonable estimates put the number of properties contaminated with meth in the tens of thousands.
They can be any type of property in any town in any suburb and they are located in all towns and suburbs around the country.
Meth Manufacture
77% of the meth labs Police found in 2010 were in residential properties. Typically these are rental/investment properties
• Meth lab busts – based official statistics
• Over 1900 between Years 2000 and 2012
• Estimated at 5 to 10% of total
• Meth labs move around
• Exact number of meth lab contaminated properties – UNKNOWN
• It is likely meth lab contaminated properties number in the tens of thousands.
• Meth labs locate in houses, hotels and motels, storage units, industrial and commercial premises, motor vehicles, motor homes, caravans and cars.
Meth Use
Every property that has been occupied by a meth user is at risk of being contaminated. Official numbers
Spotting the MethAffected Home.
Because meth is a Class A drug and you face serious jail time if you get caught manufacturing it, most meth criminals do a good job of covering their tracks, so spotting that a house has been used by meth criminals can be hard.
The pictures here are of buildings in Auckland that have had meth labs operate in them All have been subject to Council Cleansing Orders so contamination is now below the Ministry of Health guidelines and they are deemed safe to live in. What these pictures clearly demonstrate is that, unlike leaky buildings, there are no characteristics that set a meth-contaminated home apart!
And, for owners of a Meth affected property, the cost of remediation is real disincentive to look too hard for the evidence of contamination. In fact the costs (see table below) and bother associated with owning a Meth affected property, mean that some property owners will consciously choose to ignore signs of meth contamination.
Testing $2,500 to 3,000
Decontamination $10-50,000
Fit-Out $5-20,000
Re-testing $1-3,000
Loss of Rents $?,000
Loss of Value of Property 10 to 30%
Reaction of the Banks $??,000 to ???,000
Future Liability $??,000 to ???,000
Future Health Costs $??,000 t ???,000
Others will go so far as to cover up and remove the obvious signs, before getting the builders in to do a quick fix. So, not only are contractors exposed to the hazards of meth contamination, they are missing out on work that needs to be done if the home is to be safe for people to live in.
What can be done about it?
A new venture, MethSolutions, is close to being launched. This will make available high accuracy, lab-backed presumptive tests that will help determine if meth contamination is present. MethSolutions is aiming to make the test available for just $99. For more information, and you can find out more here
What builders, tradesmen and members of the public must start doing is consider the legacy of our meth culture. Failure to do so is costing decent, innocent people dearly!
The pictures below contrast the PPE most builders wear when renovating a property and those worn by specialist, New Zealand-based, decontamination teams.
Take away the ear muffs and our builder could be any tenant, in any property anywhere in the country