LIFE ON GROW OP ROW

A woman who thought she'd found a rare rental in a nice neighbourhood
discovered to her horror Thursday that she was about to move her family
into a former marijuana grow op in North Surrey.

The woman arrived to find officers escorting an appraiser through the
house, which is being assessed as part of a court application to have the
property seized as proceeds of crime.

"Now, it makes sense," the shaken woman told the police observers outside
the 18-month-old house in the 15800 block of 111 Ave. in Guildford.

When she took a tour of the inside with the landlord the previous weekend,
she thought there might have been some kind of plumbing problem because of
the dirt and water stains on the basement floor.

As well, there was a huge vent in the basement that didn't seem to have any
clear purpose, said the woman, who asked not to be named.

At $2,000 a month, "I thought it was a little pricey, but rentals are so
scarce (in this area of Surrey)," she said.

There are 12 houses on both sides of the street in this quiet Fraser
Heights neighbourhood, nine of them built in the last year and a half.

Half the houses on the street =AD six of 12 =AD have been linked to the
illegal marijuana growing trade.

Three of them have been raided by police within the last five months, three
others are believed to be under investigation.

A recently released study by the Surrey RCMP drug section estimates the
"real-world" number of marijuana grow ops in the city at 3,500 to 4,500,
most of them operated by Vietnamese gangs who are increasingly buying new
homes to conceal their illicit crops. Surrey RCMP Const. Tim Shields, the
spokesman for the local detachment, refused to comment when asked if the
incidence of grow ops on 111 Ave. was unusual for the city.

For the people who live on the street, sharing their neighbourhood with
growers has meant suffering sporadic power failures, occasional police
raids, and constant anxiety about the people who come and go from the
silent houses with the extra-large vents and shuttered windows.

In the last year, one transformer that supplies electrical power to the 12
houses on the block has blown out four times =AD twice in one night =AD
even though it's rated for 22 houses drawing normal amounts of power.

It is not, however, designed to cope with the heavy-duty demands of indoor
pot-growing operations.

One BC Hydro repairman told residents there had to be at least five grow
ops in operation on the street to account for the failure. Resident Joe
Elkin, who just sold his house and is preparing to leave the street, said
some of the homes appear to have been built specifically for marijuana
growing, with extra ventilation and heavy-duty wiring.

"What I want to know is, how are these things are getting approved by
(city) building inspectors?," Elkin asked.

Elkin, a resident of 111 Ave. for 14 years, has bought a new home in in an
older, more established neighbourhood in Surrey, where be believes there is
less chance of ending up next to a grow op.

Another family living on 111 Ave., who asked not to be named, said the same
people appear to own several houses on the street. "They're all around us,"
the man said.

Another resident said he was afraid of possible retaliation if his name
appeared in the paper, saying "we're concerned about who our neighbours
are. We worry about security, and the effect on property values (of the
grow ops)."

At the rental house Thursday afternoon, a reporter and photographer from
The Leader were greeted at the door by an Asian man who refused to give his
name and kept insisting that he was unaware of any pot growing on the
premises and that his brother, not he, was the owner.

"I don't know nothing," he said over and over, smiling and backing away.

The woman who was planning to rent the house left after talking to the
police at the scene, saying she would have to talk to her husband before
deciding what to do. She and her family must move out of their current
residence within a matter of days.