HAZ-MAT TEAM NEEDED TO CLEAN OUT CRACKHOUSE

NIAGARA FALLS -- The crackhouse of horrors is coming
down.

Crews are expected at the Stanley Avenue house this morning to
demolish the dilapidated building which had been home to prostitutes,
drug addicts and their children.

The single-storey home, which made headlines last week after
firefighters recalled the horror of battling a blaze in a home filled
with used syringes, condoms and human feces, was originally slated to
come down Monday.

"After reassessing the situation, we determined the biohazard risks
were far too great for anyone who was not trained to deal with and
dispose of those items," said Insp. Jim Jessop, a fire prevention
officer with the Niagara Fall Fire Department.

Team-1 Emergency Services, an emergency response team from Hamilton,
spent approximately five hours Tuesday removing mountains of debris
and biological waste from the site. By the end of the day, the haz-mat
team filled 15 large plastic barrels, also known as infectious disease
drums, with garbage.

"They treated the entire house as a bio-hazardous material site and
removed everything," Jessop said.

Dressed in bright yellow body suits and using specialized breathing
apparatus, the crew combed every inch of the home and made a number of
startling discoveries.

"They discovered all kinds of clothing and other materials that were
still wet with blood," Jessop said.

In the basement, they uncovered mounds of clothing that had evolved
into a garden of sorts with mushrooms of various shapes and sizes
sprouting from the garments.

"Their team leader told me that, in all of his years of doing this, he
had never seen a scene as bad as this, with all the biohazard waste,"
Jessop added.

Jessop said a conservative estimated would be more than 2,000 used
syringes were removed from the property.

Also, several bags filled with what appeared to be narcotics were
found and handed over to the Niagara Regional Police.

While the scene was dramatic, Det. Sgt. Tom MacLean of the NRP
morality unit, says it's certainly not an isolated incident.

"Unfortunately, it's a problem in every town," he said.

Typically, crackhouses serve as a general meeting place for drug
dealers, junkies and prostitutes.

Within the confines of the filthy walls, the dealers and hookers don't
have to work the streets, and the junkies have a dry place to inject
their drug of choice.

MacLean said it is not uncommon for dozens of people to be in the home
at one time, all in various stages of a drug-induced haze.

"These types of people are probably the most desperate people we ever
deal with, as far as addictions go. These people live for the next
hit. It's a pretty sad situation," he said.

Jessop said all items removed from the Stanley Avenue site will be
incinerated at a medical disposal site.

"The reason we went in with a haz-mat team is we didn't want that
stuff in the landfills," he added.

An adjacent building, a two-storey home believed to be more than 100
years old, will also be demolished in the coming days.

While the second residence was not being used as a drug house, Jessop
said it is in a dilapidated, unsafe state and there were reports
individuals had been living inside.