METH HOUSE NIGHTMARE

Family Fled Their Contaminated Home, But Kids Still Suffer

Cindy Wilson's kids aren't happy with their new toys. The old ones
went out to the curb with most of the family's belongings last spring
after their mother decided they weren't safe.

But whiny children are the least of Wilson's worries.

Spasms of coughing and an occasional nosebleed still plague three of
her children, she said, nearly four months after she moved the family
out of her country dream home in far western Hamilton County once it
was discovered that she was renting a former methamphetamine lab.

A son, born in July after the family left for Hamilton, now exhibits
some of the same problems. The boy's doctor at the health clinic,
Wilson said, mentioned just weeks ago that the signs point to meth
exposure from cross-contamination.

Wilson said she kept appliances and bedding from the contaminated
house because she couldn't afford to replace them.

"When is it going to end?" the 33-year-old mother cried.

Wilson feels guilty about moving her kids to a place where the
fastest-growing drug problem in America left its mark at her doorstep
on Lawrenceburg Road in Whitewater Township.

She's angry that no one told her what she was getting into - a house
so contaminated that meth residue was even found in the toaster.

Hamilton County health officials had the rental house tested for
methamphetamine after Wilson, then seven months pregnant, complained
in April that her children were sick.

The county's involvement isn't the norm.

More than 100 houses, apartments and hotel rooms have been busted as
meth labs in Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky since 2000, an
Enquirer investigation reveals. They are bought and sold, leased and
re-rented, and can change hands repeatedly without anyone knowing
about their potentially poisonous past.

A Hamilton Township woman looking for a bargain home through a
sheriff's auction wound up in a former meth lab. Her basement is
contaminated. A couple who bought their retirement home near Morrow
were told meth was cooked in their barn. But police records show it
was happening in their basement.

Unlike Kentucky and Indiana, state and local officials in Ohio do
nothing to notify prospective owners and tenants or force anyone to
clean up the properties. No one has the authority, the way the law
stands today.

Proposed legislation could change that. But, it doesn't appear to be
gaining any momentum in Columbus. And, as in most of the other states,
that law wouldn't do much to fix contaminated properties that already
exist.

"They are basically a toxic waste dump," said State Rep. Stephen Dyer,
a Democrat from Summit County who introduced a proposed notification
and cleanup law for Ohio in March.

The legislator's push to do something about it doesn't faze Ronnie
Heid.

The weather-worn and tattered paper notice the Hamilton County Health
District tacked to the house on Lawrenceburg Road explains Heid's
exasperation: "Home is condemned due to positive methamphetamine
residue tests ..."

The 58-year-old business owner rented the house to Wilson. He says he
didn't realize the potential risks any more than his tenant did, but
now he's stuck dealing with a troubled property.

Almost every Monday in recent months, Heid and long-time girlfriend
Debbie King make the trip from Hamilton to clean up the mess that was
left behind, one that the health department said has to be fixed
before anyone else can move in.

In the meantime, Heid is losing $750 a month in potential income. King
said they've spent more than $1,600 fixing up the place, and that
doesn't count the many unpaid hours the do-it-yourselfers have put
into the job.

The task has been difficult, Heid said. The legally blind heating and
air conditioning contractor has had to rely on King to do a great deal
of the work. She suffered a mini-stroke in September.

"I had no idea," Heid said of all the work. "Had I known, I would have
stopped a long time ago."

Said King: "We've got to get it done. We're going into bankruptcy."

A TOXIC STEW THAT LINGERS

No one is sure just how harmful meth residue is. There has been little
research on the long-term health effects.

However, when meth labs are detected, the drug and chemicals used to
make it are considered so poisonous and potentially explosive that
police officers investigate the places wearing protective "moon suits"
and respirators.

Many studies have documented what meth does to the people who smoke
it, inject it or find other ways to take the addictive drug.

Meth is made from a toxic stew of chemicals that can include
fingernail polish remover, batteries, drain cleaner, pesticides,
varnishes, paint thinners, and starter fluid.

The potential harm from exposure to large amounts of meth or its
components can range from mild effects such as skin and eye irritation
and nausea to severe respiratory problems, depression, paranoia,
delusions, liver and kidney damage, leukemia, and other forms of cancer.

"I would say it's one of the worst drugs there is," said Jim Liles,
head of the Northern Kentucky Drug Strike Force. "If you try it, you
could be hooked the first time. In five years, you'll age 30 years and
your teeth will completely rot out. In 10 years, you are dead."

Meth is legal if it's prescribed by doctors for a range of conditions
including attention deficit disorder, narcolepsy and obesity.

But the drug also is widely used as an illicit stimulant made
carelessly by mom-and-pop chemists, many of whom are trying to feed
their own addictions and sell a little to friends to help pay for the
next batch.

With a stranglehold on the West Coast for nearly two decades, the
drug's march into the Midwest has left a disturbing impact on the
Greater Cincinnati region since meth emerged here in 2000.

Police in Butler, Clermont, Hamilton, Warren, Boone, Kenton and
Campbell counties have discovered about 350 sites where meth labs were
operated in houses, barns, apartments, motel rooms and cars. The sites
also included places where stashes of dangerous chemicals were stored
and places where hazardous waste from the drug-making process was
dumped along rural roads or in farm ponds.

Two years ago, the meth problem hit such a high point that Clermont
County officials said it was straining child protection services. More
than 40 children have been removed from homes where meth was being
cooked, sending them into the foster care system while their parents
spend time in prison or drug rehab.

Police say the frequency of meth lab incidents has slowed this year
after laws were passed restricting the sale of pseudoephedrine, an
over-the-counter cold pill and one of meth's main ingredients. But the
meth problem is far from over, police say.

STATE STANDARDS FALL BEHIND

As enforcement continues, Ohio has fallen behind at least 15 other
states which have established standards for cleaning up meth labs.

"A lot of it comes down to what is a safe level, what you have to do
to reach a safe level, and what are proper standards to adopt through
the state," said Dyer.

Laws in the other states differ, but they usually set detection limits
for determining whether a building has to be quarantined until it is
cleaned up. Those thresholds have touched off a debate among
scientists and health officials.

Some argue that standards based solely on the limits of analytical
equipment don't provide sufficient protection - or might even be
excessive - absent research on the long-term health risks of
methamphetamine exposure.

Some of the state laws have been around since the early 1990s. But
like Ohio, the federal government has yet to set a cleanup standard.
Instead, it's studying the issue.

"At least right now, most of the states are being as conservative as
possible," said John Martyny, an industrial hygienist and assistant
professor at National Jewish Medical and Research Center in Denver,
who studies contamination and exposure from meth labs.

"That's the way public health has to be. As you learn more, you can
become a little less conservative. But, right now ... we have a higher
unknown factor."

The political appetite in Ohio for a notification law isn't clear.
Dyer's proposal has been sitting in the House Infrastructure, Homeland
Security and Veterans Affairs Committee since March. No one has even
broached the subject with the director of the Ohio Department of
Public Safety, said committee chairman, State Rep. Steve Reinhard,
R-Bucyrus. And, the bill probably doesn't have a chance until some
hard questions are answered.

"Who pays for this and who is going to do the testing?" Reinhard
said.

"We haven't been able to come up with any good answers to propel the
bill forward."

FOLLOWING MINNESOTA'S LEAD

Ohio health officials recognize there's a potential health risk from
meth residues, but only recently has the state agency issued cleanup
guidelines modeled after a law in Minnesota.

Minnesota recommends ventilating the property for several days;
disposing of carpet, wallpaper, furniture and drapes; washing surfaces
twice; sealing and painting ceilings, walls and wood floors; and
washing and cleaning furnaces, air conditioners and ducts.

"This is guidance. We are not even making the suggestion you have to
do this," said Greg Stein of the Ohio Department of Health, who was
appointed to a state task force to help assess the health threat from
former meth labs.

"There is no state mandate," Stein said. "Local health departments
have no legal mandate to address the labs either."

Ohio law requires owners to tell potential buyers about problems such
as lead paint, termites and structural defects. A form has to be
filled out before a contract is signed. Withholding the truth means an
owner can be sued.

"It also says, 'Are you aware of the presence of hazardous
substances?' " said Bob Fletcher, vice president of public policy for
the Ohio Association of Realtors. "Methamphetamine would definitely
fit into that category."

But the law doesn't apply to properties that are sold in foreclosure
proceedings or sheriff's sales.

"There has to be some sort of disclosure law," said Stein, who gets a
call a month from people who found out after the fact that they had
moved into a former meth lab. "Most people that call me are concerned
about the health effects secondary. They are more concerned about why
weren't they told."

Martyny's research indicates there's at least some risk from living in
a former meth lab. Vapors from meth cooking can spread through a house
like the smell of buttered popcorn popping in a microwave.

It absorbs into the paper that covers drywall. It sticks to walls,
floors and other surfaces.

It gets imbedded in carpeting and can't be shampooed out. It creeps
into heating ducts, furnaces and air conditioners. High levels stick
around for at least three months after a meth cook, he said.

All that concerns him, especially when it comes to
children.

"If you moved into a meth home even months afterward with a small
child, especially an infant, the odds are the infant would start
testing positive for methamphetamine," Martyny said.

SOME GET RID OF THE PROBLEM

To avoid the cleanup costs, some communities have opted to simply
demolish meth-contaminated houses, including one earlier this year in
Forest Park.

"In every room we checked we found it, on the tops of lights and
inside the cold air returns," said John Snawder, a research
toxicologist with NIOSH who tested the house on Gresham Place. He even
had traces on his clothes when he left the house.

Marc Meade didn't test the house he and his wife, Beth, bought on an
acre on Roachester-Osceola Road outside Morrow in Warren County for
meth, even though the real-estate agent warned him the property was
busted as a meth lab in July 2004.

Meade, a contractor by trade, just trusted his nose.

The 57-year-old tore down walls, sniffing for chemical odors in the
house that might be associated with meth cooking. He found nothing, so
he believed what the agent had told him - that the meth was cooked in
the barn out back.

That was partly true, according to police records The Enquirer
obtained.

In its former life, the house was so well known for meth activity that
a blue light mounted on the chimney would switch on as if it was
advertising a discount sale.

"Ready to cook. Ready to deal," said Meade, who learned a lot from
neighbors, but only after he moved in.

Warren County Drug Task Force records show that used coffee filters
and dirty Mason jars with white residue were found in the basement
bedroom of Meade's house.

"Evidence was located throughout the residence that indicated the
illegal manufacture of methamphetamine was occurring at the time
officers made contact with all suspects," noted a report by the Warren
County Drug Task Force.

Still, Meade hasn't had second thoughts about the two-bedroom ranch
surrounded by farm fields, creeks and woods on land that won't ever be
developed. It's where he and his wife plan to retire.

Meade has a love-hate relationship with drug dealers. He despises what
they do. But, he thinks he got a good price on his house because of
them - $111,800.

Like Murad, Meade says he went online to figure out how to clean up
his house. His precautions included flushing out the plumbing and
cleaning the furnace and ductwork.

Meade said he would have handled things differently if the real-estate
agent hadn't mentioned the meth lab bust.

"I'd sue," he said.

NEVER SAW THE DRUGS

Wilson, who rented the Lawrenceburg Road property, is thinking about
doing just that.

"I want to put him in that damn home so he can get sick," she said of
Heid. "I don't know how much more of this I can take."

Neither Heid nor King said they have suffered any ill effects during
the long days of making changes to the house.

Heid said he didn't know anything about the meth activity at the
house. But, he heard enough about it that he said he confronted the
former tenant who lived there for eight years before Wilson moved in.

The woman denied it, Heid said. She even invited him in, and Heid said
he didn't see any drugs.

"I really don't think there was ever a meth lab in here," Heid
said.

His theory is fueled by inspections by federal housing officials, who
checked the house every year to make sure it fit their standards. They
didn't mention anything about seeing drugs, Heid said.

Today, Heid feels like he's just as much a victim as
Wilson.

"I'm so upset about it," Heid said. "I didn't do anything. Now, I'm
the one eating everything."

Eileen Kelley contributed to this report.