GROWHOUSES BECOMING NUMEROUS IN SW FLA.

Perhaps it was how the neighbors always kept the shades drawn and
garage doors closed.

Maybe it could have been the skunky smell that wafted through the
air, or the fact that the house seemed somewhat abandoned altogether.

"I didn't know what it was exactly," Cape Coral resident Linda Barr
said, "but I knew they were doing something they shouldn't be."

Last October police raided the house on S.E. 15th Street, busting
two men for running an extensive marijuana cultivation operation
where 103 plants, valued at $250,000, were seized.

It is just one in a string of elaborate efforts, also known as "grow
houses," that authorities in southern Florida have broken up in the past year.

In the Cape, where the majority of Lee County busts take place,
there have been 34 raids so far this year, 11 more than the total
for last year.

In Lehigh Acres, where Lee County Sheriff's spokesman Angelo Vaughn
said all of his department's recent busts have gone down, 14 have
been found since January 2005.

Last year in Collier County, there were 35 busts -- by far the
highest in the past four years.

And just last week, officials in Port St. Lucie, on Florida's east
coast, announced the break up of a grow house ring that included
more than 50 houses and 4,000 pounds of the plant that yielded
millions of dollars each harvest.

What gives with the growth?

"Drug operations tend to follow trends," Cape Coral Deputy Chief Rob
Petrovich said. "Back in the 1980s and '90s, we saw a lot of acid
(LSD) and crack-cocaine. Now, one of the newest trends seems to be
grow houses."

But it's not just the sale of the plant authorities are concerned
about. Growers, they said, are becoming more organized -- and more dangerous.

For more on this story, check back later at news-press.com.

Coming tomorrow: news-press.com debuts a new crime Web site at
www.news-press.com/crime. Check every police call in your
neighborhood. Murders, sex offenses, burglaries, assaults, thefts
and just about anything else.

If it's a crime and the Lee County Sheriff's Office responded to it,
you can find it with the click of a mouse. Initially, computer
programmers will update the site weekly. news-press.com is working
with police departments in Cape Coral, Fort Myers and Sanibel and
hopes to add those to the database soon.