METH LABS AFFECT NEIGHBORHOOD TOO

The Madness Of Meth - Part 4 of 5

NORTH MANKATO -- It happened in Mary Barnett's neighborhood.

On Robin Court, a normally quiet cul-de-sac in upper North Mankato,
Barnett's next-door neighbors moved and couldn't sell their old house right
away. In November 2001 they rented it to three men who seemed nice enough,
but neighbors could tell "they weren't normal," she said.

Shortly after they moved in, Barnett and other neighbors started noticing
strange things. They never had any garbage, they parked on their lawn, and
they blacked out some of their windows.

And almost immediately, Barnett noticed cars coming into the cul-de-sac
"nonstop" and people going into the house with knapsacks and coolers.

"The traffic increased like you wouldn't believe," she said, citing
anywhere from 10 to 30 cars between 4:30 p.m. and 5 a.m. every day.

Barnett's suspicions were later confirmed - her next-door neighbors were
operating a meth lab out of their garage.

They washed the leftover chemicals from the lab down their driveway, past
Barnett's house and into the cul-de-sac's storm sewers.

"We knew they were doing drugs, but we had no idea they were operating a
meth lab," she said.

Calling the cops

Barnett contacted North Mankato police in January 2002, and she said there
was no sting operation. Police Detective Nicole Adams said North Mankato
didn't do any special surveillance, but the drug task force they're
associated with might have."People in the neighborhood were upset," Barnett
said. "They were also, I think, frightened. They had little kids."

The lab was busted on April Fool's Day, when two of the three men already
had moved out and the lab was partially in operation.

"This whole thing stinks," Barnett said. "They could have had a very big
drug bust, but they didn't."

Adams said nothing major could be done right away because one tidbit of
information doesn't constitute probable cause for a search warrant.

"Drug cases take a long time to investigate," Adams said. Authorities need
to do surveillance and get evidence before they can act on tips, she said.

This particular investigation was done in early 2002, as meth labs were
starting to become more common. Adams couldn't say whether the
investigation would have taken as long if it happened all over again.

Effects on health

Now that the three men have moved out of the neighborhood and their drug
charges have moved through the court system, Barnett is most concerned
about the meth-making chemicals' effects on human health and the environment.

"It's so toxic," she said. "The chemicals stay. They don't break down. It's
ending up in water supplies, it's ending up everywhere."

Barnett also wants to make sure the house has been cleaned properly since
the meth makers moved out. She said the owners of the house, Dennis and
Mary Jeanne Turtle, cleaned it themselves and hired a housekeeper to help.
Barnett saw them hosing down a piece of carpet in the driveway but doesn't
know if they replaced all the porous things - curtains, furniture and
carpet - that meth fumes could have soaked into.

The first time Mary Jeanne Turtle learned her tenants were making meth was
when she went to the house to collect rent and it had been blocked off by
the police. Turtle said her former neighbors never told her they suspected
her renters were involved with drugs.

"Because we were renting, we easily could have brought the police over
there, and I would gladly have done that," she said.

"I just can't stand that (drug activity), and I would have kicked them out
myself."

Turtle said she and her husband cleaned the property themselves because
officials from the state Department of Health told them only to dig up a
contaminated part of the front lawn and thoroughly clean the garage. They
weren't required to clean the house because the meth lab operated out of
the garage, she said.

But Barnett said the health of the whole neighborhood was at risk that
winter. She noticed changes in her health when the three men cooked meth in
the garage next door to hers and washed their meth byproduct down the
driveway. Her eyes watered, her nose ran, her head ached and she had
trouble breathing.

"I've never had that in the winter before, and I've never had it since,"
she said.

Her dog walked through the gutters where the meth chemicals were washed,
and now he has pre-cancerous tumors.

"I sound like I'm a fanatic on this, but I'm just really concerned,"
Barnett said. "They should have had a nice family in there."