Series: Coming Clean (Part 1D)

A RUDE AWAKENING TO THE WORLD OF DRUG LABS

Bonnie Drye had never even heard the word methamphetamine when authorities
called her in early September 2003 to say that her Oakwood Avenue rental
house had been the site of a meth "cooking" operation.

The new tenants had moved in 20 days before police converged on the house.

Investigators said they found the standard fare during the search: wire
baskets fitted with filters and hung above a spread tarp. Small propane
tanks lying about. An anhydrous ammonia tank sat in a small U-Haul trailer
outside.

A field test found methamphetamine residue on some items in the home,
police said at the time.

The State Bureau of Investigation Clandestine Lab Unit spent about eight
hours dismantling the lab.

Agents carted off all the items they believed were involved in the lab.

The Dryes were stuck with the mess.

"We knew it would hold a stigma, and we knew it had to be fixed," Bonnie
Drye said.

The Dryes were told that if they cleaned thoroughly, the home that they had
purchased as a rental about 10 years ago should be OK.

But "we wanted to do everything we could," Bonnie Drye said.

The lab bust came before North Carolina had any standard regulations for
cleaning up former meth labs, so Bonnie Drye started researching the
Internet to learn what needed to be done.

In the end, the Dryes spent about $10,000 of their own money for the
materials to fix the home, Bonnie Drye said. Insurance doesn't cover
situations like they were in.

The Dryes did all the work themselves.

They replaced the carpet and padding. They installed new baseboard heaters
and plumbing; primed and painted the interiors and even replaced some of
the wallboard, she said.

"It's about like a new house," she says.

Bonnie Drye says she asks any new tenant to sign a disclosure form saying
they knew of the home's history.

"We don't try to hide anything," she says. "We want them to know. Ten years
from now, we'll still be telling the people who rent from us."

Bonnie Drye says she doesn't believe the tenants could have been creating
methamphetamine very long. She says she dropped off a set of keys about two
weeks before the raid and didn't notice anything out of the ordinary.

Bonnie Drye wondered about the tenants when they first moved in. But times
were tight, she said.

"I just made a big mistake," in renting to the tenants later charged for
manufacturing methamphetamine.

"I'm definitely a lot more careful now.