REALTORS FRET AS SUBURBS GO TO POT

(CP) -- Usually, says Don Dickson of the Calgary Real Estate Board, only
the Christmas lunch is so well-attended. But last month, 526 real estate
agents showed up at one of the board's seminars. The topic? Marijuana grow ops.

"It was pretty amazing," says Dickson, president of the board. "It's
obviously a topic of great concern."

Real estate agents aren't the only ones alarmed by the increasing number of
quiet, suburban homes being used to grow lucrative crops of high-quality
marijuana. No longer solely the concern of law enforcement, the rapid
spread of such grow ops is changing the way agencies from insurers to
municipalities do business.

"What originally started as a B.C. problem has spread Canada-wide," said
Dave Way, standards and practices co-ordinator for the Insurance Bureau of
Canada.

It's becoming a familiar sequence from coast to coast, says Const. Richard
Baylin, RCMP national co-ordinator for marijuana grow ops: the empty house
on the nice suburban street, the quiet new neighbours, the cop cars, the TV
crews.

TOXIC MOULD

Then it's back to the empty home - this time full of toxic mould from high
humidity, its foundation chipped away to get at power lines, its drywall
damp and crumbling.

As far as grow ops are concerned, British Columbia, Quebec and Ontario are
"the Big Three," Baylin said.

A March RCMP report estimates the number of Ontario grow ops grew 250%
between 2000 and 2002, a year in which there may have been up to 15,000 of
them active in the province.

Now they're showing up in Halifax. Winnipeg has called Baylin's office for
advice.

A little over a year ago, seven homes on the same upscale Calgary suburban
street were busted. Edmonton has increased the number of police officers
working on grow ops to six from four.

Experts offer a variety of reasons for the increase, from organized crime
exploiting a high-profit enterprise to low prison terms for those caught.
But for Canadian business, the bottom line is that it's starting to affect
the bottom line. Real estate agents, who may unwittingly sell a former
grow-op or sell to someone wanting to build one, may have the most at stake.

"A realtor is the one stuck in the middle," says Bob Linney of the Real
Estate Association of Canada.

Agents are obliged to disclose anything that may affect the integrity of
the house, he says. But sellers may not tell their agent everything. As
well, a house's grow op history may be several buyers in the past.

And telling a buyer his or her prospective home used to be a grow op may be
slanderous unless a criminal conviction was actually obtained.

"The realtor walks a very fine line," Linney says.

CLAUSE

The B.C. Real Estate Association now includes a clause on its listing form
that specifically asks the seller if he knows if the building has been used
as a grow op.

Municipalities are also starting to feel the strain. "The workload is
becoming an issue," says Glenn Jenkins, an Edmonton environmental health
inspector. His job is supposed to centre on inner-city housing, but since
January he's been inspecting former grow ops on an almost weekly basis.

"The first thing you notice is the smell," says Jenkins, who's seen one
home so mouldy that brown stalactites hung from it. "It has a kind of skunk
cabbage smell."