Was Your New Home A Meth Lab?

Monday, May 7th 2007, 10:00 pm

By: News On 6

Meth labs can cause problems even after theyâ€™ve been cleared out of a home, apartment, motel room, etc. This is because toxic particles are released into the air during the cooking process, and those particles get embedded in walls, carpets, air vents, ceiling fans, practically everything in a home. As a result, anyone living in a home that was a former meth lab can suffer serious health consequences. Unfortunately, itâ€™s not always easy to tell if your new home has been contaminated by meth lab activity. But there are a few things you can do to determine if a home or apartment is a former meth lab site.

You can check with local law enforcement to see if there is a record of any meth related activity at your address.

You can talk to your new neighbors, who may be able to give you some background information on the property.

You can have the home tested for meth contamination.

If you discover your home is contaminated with methamphetamine residue youâ€™ll need to hire a professional cleaner to ensure all the dangerous contaminants are removed from your home. The list below is a basic outline of the cleaning process, but the procedure can vary by state or by county.

After police seize the home, bulk chemicals, containers, and other paraphernalia are removed from the site.

A government health agency declares the property unsafe for entry and posts a notice at the site.

Normally, a professional health and safety inspector or consultant looks over the site and determines the extent of contamination. From there they create a cleanup plan.

A trained and certified cleanup contractor performs the cleaning in areas designated by the inspectors plan. They then dispose of the hazardous material appropriately.

The inspector or consultant reexamine the structure after cleanup to determine if all of the chemical residue has been removed. They do this by visual inspection and by taking wipe samples for laboratory analysis.

If the site does not meet cleanup standards, the contractor returns and re-cleans the structure, and another inspection is done. Once the site is clean of meth chemicals and residues the health agency will issue a certificate of re-occupancy.