GROW-HOME NIGHTMARE

It had been a lovely suburban home Lina and her sister inherited from their
parents and rented to a nice, polite family with two children.

It was only when police called her last July that Lina, who didn't want her
last name used, learned the truth.

"Downstairs in one room where I guess they fiddled around with the power,
we're getting water in there, so I guess they wrecked the foundation," she
said.

"There's lots of mould through the whole house. Our roof was all black, we
had to remove it all."

Lina's home was hosting a hydroponic marijuana grow, one of an estimated
15,000 in southern Ontario.

UNSUSPECTING LANDLORDS

Cops say the dope growers prefer to rent expansive homes in spacious
subdivisions, which offer anonymity and unquestioning neighbours. Renting
also provides protection from seizure under proceeds of crime legislation.

Rent and the growing equipment are the only overhead. Power is stolen by
drilling through the foundation and bypassing the hydroelectric box.

Walls are knocked down or pulled out so every spare inch can be devoted to
the crop.

The acrid smell of the growing plants is vented upward, along with excessive
heat and humidity, by punching holes through the floors up to the roof.

The result is warped plywood and waterlogged insulation, but with grow
houses turning a million-dollars profit or more a year, damage to homes the
cultivators don't own is no disincentive.

For unsuspecting landlords such as Lina, though, the aftermath is a ruined
home, a police probe and a fight with insurers.

"I didn't do anything wrong. I'm an innocent victim."

The police investigated her, repair bills have hit nearly $100,000 and her
insurance company cancelled her policy.

"The insurance didn't even want to come to look at it," she said. "We were
23 years with this insurance company and this was the first claim we'd ever
made."

Insurers are only just now waking up to the grow-house problem that
hydroelectric companies have been suffering with for the past few years.

Claims like Lina's are being refused and new policies specifically state
damage from marijuana plantations won't be covered.

"Every time we take down a lab someone has to come in and do a whole lot of
work before anyone can live in them again," Peel Region police Insp. Dave
Van Loosen said.

"Theoretically, these houses should be condemned. A lot of insurance
companies are now writing it into policies that they won't cover this kind
of damage."

Police in Peel, York, Durham and Halton regions are scrambling from house to
house, kicking in as many grow house doors as they have officers to handle.

But once the cops are gone, the wrecked house is left behind, often with an
outstanding power bill of $10,000 or more.

Peel Region drug Det. Ian Calder said he wouldn't buy a former grow house
unless it had been thoroughly inspected but even that presents a problem --
home inspectors may not know what to look for.

"If we suspect it was a former grow home then we tell them it was a former
grow home," Rebecca Zammit, who works for HouseMaster home inspections,
said.

Dominique O'Rourke, spokesman for the Co-operators, said the firm has been
writing in a clause to their policies excluding pot-grow damage since
November 2001.

"It's just bringing more clarity that intentional or illegal damage is not
covered," she said. "We were seeing this incredible trend in B.C. and it was
just growing and growing in Ontario, pardon the pun.

"It causes extensive structural damage to the home."

Hydroelectric companies are now painfully aware of the cost to their
operations in stolen electricity from the grows -- now estimated to average
$2,000 per home a month.

PAINFUL LESSON

If the police estimate of 15,000 grow homes is correct, that means up to
$360 million worth of power is stolen a year, a cost that must be covered by
consumers.

But the power firms are also learning they're running up additional costs in
damaged and compromised equipment. Sometimes the cable running into homes
can be damaged by the amateur grower while bypassing the box.

Markham Hydro spokesman Ed Benvenuto said repairing or replacing the cable
can cost about $2,000.

Oshawa Power and Utilities Corporation metering supervisor Ron Little said
the huge draw of a marijuana grow can also tax the transformer, serving
about 10 homes.

"We've had some transformers in new subdivisions blow for no reason," Little
said, estimating replacement can run about $5,000, not counting the cost of
the crew.

For Lina, it's been a painful lesson since she's been told her parents' home
had been turned into a drug lab.

The repairs are almost done now and she hopes to rent it again, but she has
a warning for others.

"I'd tell them to check out (your tenants), make sure that you tell them
you're going to do the monthly inspections," she said.

"It's a nightmare. And trying to get insurance again is another nightmare."