POT GROW-OPS LEAVE UNHEALTHY MESS

76 Homes Busted This Year Alone In Edmonton

EDMONTON - Ken Burton got stuck with a $20,000 repair bill after an
agent unwittingly rented his house to marijuana growers.

But he still feels fortunate.

His neighbours on Cormack Crescent in the tony Carter Crest
neighbourhood in southwest Edmonton were surprised in June when police
raided the home and found the basement full of hydroponic equipment,
lamps and 700 pot plants.

Such finds are becoming more commonplace in Edmonton. This year, 76
grow operations have been busted, including one in north Edmonton on
Wednesday that resulted in one arrest and the seizure of 291 plants.

Burton and his family had moved to another home and instead of selling
the old house decided to rent it out through a leasing agent.

After getting the call from police, he went to see the house. It
looked normal from the outside, but inside he found a different story.
Most of the plants were gone, but he saw the mess in the basement
caused by humidity and a big hole punched through the foundation to
tap into the power without going through the meter.

"These guys were pretty careful -- they had the whole area wrapped in
plastic," he said. "It was a big cleanup to get rid of it ... but we
got very lucky. A lot of grow-ops are a lot worse than this."

He was told police suspect it was the first crop and it wasn't quite
full-grown. Four people were arrested, including two from Vancouver
and one from New York state.

He spent about $20,000 to repair the foundation, replace some drywall
and generally clean up to get rid of the strong musty odour. None of
it was covered by home insurance.

He disclosed the grow-op history when he sold the home and still got
the list price of $400,000.

He is talking to a lawyer about possible legal action against the
leasing agent, who was supposed to check the home regularly.

While the number of grow-op busts has remained stable for the past
five years, the number of plants in each one is growing and police
believe they are just getting the tip of the iceberg. The Green Team,
a joint operation between RCMP and city police, has six officers
responsible for investigating grow-ops all over northern Alberta. An
RCMP report estimates there are 50,000 operations across Canada.

Grow-op homes are a concern to health officials as well, said Glenn
Jenkins, an environmental health officer with Capital Health.

Many are condemned as unfit for habitation because mould releases
spores that can cause respiratory ailments and other health problems.

After Wednesday's bust, a $200,000 home in Castle Downs was declared
unfit for habitation because of mould and safety concerns over the
connection to the power supply.

For a landlord, it's a case of owner beware.

"We don't cover illegal activity," says Louise Bremness, manager of
regional services for the Insurance Bureau of Canada. "An insurance
policy covers for sudden and accidental loss, but the damage is over a
period of time."

Most policies will not honour a claim for damage caused by a grow-op,
even if the owner was an innocent party and the activity occurred
without his or her knowledge, Bremness said. In other words, the onus
is on the owner to know what's going on in the home.

"If I was a landlord, I would pick up the rent every month and I'd go
down to the basement to see that there's just a furnace there," said
Det. Clayton Sach of the Green Team, a joint operation of city police
and RCMP.

Sach believes there are few innocent landlords. The usual scenario is
an investor buys a house, sets up its operation for a few crops, then
fixes up the house with new drywall and paint, and moves on.

The owner usually has a "crop-sitter" staying at the house, looking
after the plants and bringing in some furniture to create a veneer of
normalcy.

If the operation is busted, the owner claims to know nothing about the
grow-op and usually escapes prosecution. The people who are convicted
are often given sentences that involve community service and no jail
time, which reduces the risk of the business and is a source of
frustration for police.

Grow operators prefer to buy houses rather than rent them to avoid
nosy landlords, Sach said. They'll usually get their equity back or
chalk it up as a business expense if they lose money on the resale of
the house.

Some will walk away from a mortgage, especially if they have little
equity in the house. One grow house in Mill Woods had been purchased
by three young men who had a total of $1,600 in equity in the home.

Though there are some in inner-city neighbourhoods, Sach said grow
operators prefer suburbia. Busts were made at 10 homes in the past few
weeks in an area between 82nd Street and 97th Street north of 150th
Avenue.

"They like the big new houses because the basements are not developed
and there are no walls getting in the way," he said. "When they're
done, it's just an undeveloped basement."

Growers also like houses with attached garages, Sach said. People are
less likely to know their neighbours on streets where all the houses
are fronted by garages and it is much easier to load all the
hydroponic equipment into the home without anybody seeing it.

Jenkins has seen some dangerous practices in the grow houses he has
inspected.

The pot plants do better with air circulation, so the basement area is
vented through the chimney, which means the furnace isn't properly
vented, boosting the probability of carbon monoxide poisoning, he said.

"In one of those cases we found children living in the house," Jenkins
said. "It's a good thing no one died in that one."

A GROWING CONCERN

Year - Number of Grow-Op Busts - Total Plants Seized

1999 - 72 - 5,917

2000 - 81 - 10,937

2001 - 80 - 13,547

2002 - 68 - 11,791

2003 - 80 - 21,464

2004 - 76 - 28,417