Toxic Homes for Sale: How California's Illegal Marijuana Industry Ruins Houses

Illegal grows in residential homes are hard to detect, create serious health hazards, and are connected with a number of other illegal activities, such as human trafficking and use of toxic pesticides that are not legal in the US. Illegal grow operations in California are “dominated by a mix of transnational criminal organizations…When agents serve a warrant, they often find human trafficking victims, automatic weapons, bobby traps and, increasingly, banned toxic pesticides smuggled from China.

These residential operations are hard to detect because the houses look normal from the outside. Growers often build walls to conceal the grow operation and, according to this article, “it typically takes a fire, robbery, or neighbors reporting electrical theft to tip off law or code enforcement.”

One serious issue arising from illegal residential grows is these homes become dangerous because “the harsh pesticides growers use permeate every surface - ceilings, walls, floors, vents and drywall.” These pesticides include nerve agents and other chemicals that are not even listed in US chemical libraries. In some cases, these homes then get turned back into residential homes with only superficial cosmetic fixes that do nothing to mitigate the toxic chemicals. They are then sold at a discount to unsuspecting buyers.

The article tells of one buyer who purchased one of these former illegal grow houses at a price below market rate. She has health issues from living in the house, problems related to illegal home modifications, and safety issues because people think it is still a drug house. She has been unable to sell due to the damage to the house.

Author: Beige Luciano-Adams

Read full article on The Epoch Times

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