LANDLORD'S CROSS-COUNTRY SURPRISE: HIS HOUSE IN A POT BUST

The owner of an Evergreen Shores home where detectives found more than
$450,000 worth of marijuana on Christmas Day lives in Worcester,
Mass., and was renting the house to a man named Hung, the owner said
Thursday.

"Oh, wow," said Bao Vo, who owns the home on 77th Court Southwest in
the Black Lake area, when told that detectives found 300 pot plants at
the home. Vo, who did not speak English fluently, passed the phone to
his daughter, June.

She said that her father, who is Vietnamese, rented the home to
another Vietnamese man. June said her father is a friend of the man,
then corrected herself and said they were not friends. June added that
she was not sure who else was living at the home.

"My dad says that he's been looking for him for two months to pay rent
and stuff and hasn't been able to locate him," June said. "When he
first rented it out it was just him, and we're not sure if his wife
and kids came."

June said the man who rents the house works in construction. She added
that her father had no idea the house was being used to grow marijuana.

Neighbors said the man lived there with his wife and two children, a
boy and a girl.

Damara Klamm, who lives across the street, said her granddaughter
played with the daughter of the couple who rented the house where the
drugs were found.

Thurston County Narcotics Task Force Lt. Loreli Thompson said Thursday
that police have not been able to locate the home's occupants.

She also said the task force is investigating whether the
marijuana-growing operation is connected to organized crime.

Detectives found the marijuana Tuesday night after a neighbor saw
flames and smoke coming from the home's roof and called the fire
department. Firefighters smelled the marijuana and called detectives.

No one was at the home, though Narcotics Detective Ken Lundquist said
a witness saw an Asian male flee after the fire.

Thompson estimated the value of the 300 mature marijuana plants found
at the home at $450,000, which does not include the smaller plants
also found.

The fire was started by electrical wires that overheated because the
home's occupants illegally tapped into a Puget Sound Energy line to
bypass the meter, Lundquist said Wednesday. Utility theft is common
among indoor marijuana growers because they want to hide the high
power use that growing operations require, he added.

PSE spokeswoman Dorothy Bracken said Thursday that such utility
thefts, called meter diversions by the utility, are on the rise. In
2005, PSE investigated about one diversion per month. In 2007, PSE has
investigated about five per month, she said.

If a technician discovers a meter diversion, he or she reports it to
authorities, Bracken said. She said she doesn't know whether the
increase in diversions is connected to more large marijuana-growing
operations indoors in Washington.

Vo and his wife, Chinh Vo, purchased the Evergreen Shores home in
March for $275,000, according to Thurston County Assessor's Office
records. In 2003, the home had sold for $177,000.

The three-bedroom home has two full bathrooms and a partial bath,
assessor's records say. Lundquist said six of the home's 10 rooms were
devoted to the marijuana-growing operation.