Meth warning for home buyers. Test before purchasing and avoid accidentally buying an ex-meth lab
In part one of this two-part interview Radio New Zealand’s Kathryn Ryan speaks to property lawyer Linda Fox about why home buyers should be including ‘meth test’ provisions in their Sale & Purchase Agreements to help avoid the potentially huge cost of accidentally buying a contaminated house.
In part two, Kathryn speaks with Dr Nick Kim who is a senior lecturer in Applied Chemistry with the School of Public Health at Massey University. Dr Kim has been outspoken on the need for home owners to conduct their own independent tests for meth contamination for the same reasons but to also consider the scientific evidence of what level ‘dangerous’ contamination is reached.
Although these interview are New Zealand-based, the same lessons apply here in Australia. Ice has infiltrated all suburbs and towns in Australia and across the whole socio-economic range. Anyone from rich to poor could be a user of ice, and any property could show indications of ice residue.
Property lawyer Linda Fox says that all purchasers of houses that are not brand-new should have a condition included that the house be meth tested and proved clean. This is especially important if the property has been previously rented or in an isolated position.
The other warning signs may be that the house has been rented out as a holiday home, or it could be in a run-down condition, or located in a lower socio-economical area. But meth labs are not confined only to these conditions and the meth producing syndicates are getting more cunning with where they locate their operations. You could just as easily find a meth lab in an upmarket rental amongst other multi-million dollar homes.
Linda Fox knows of cases where, in a buoyant property market, buyers have been caught out by not testing before purchase as they don’t want to miss out on securing a property. Not testing may also be because of the perceived cost of having test companies go in and then waiting days for the results.
Now though, with the Narcotect D4D PenTest kit, buyers can conduct their own surface tests for less than $100 for a 3 or 4 bedroom house, and have the results in seconds.
In the second interview, Dr Nick Kim estimates that 30 to 40% of homes tested, in NZ, have some level of meth contamination. As scary as this may sound, Dr Kim says that often the highest level that the contamination reaches is about that found on banknotes, and therefore could easily be detected on the fingertips of anyone who has handled money.
Dr Kim explains that from a scientific point of view, the current levels set in the Government Meth Lab Clean-up Guidelines are too low. The 0.5µg per 100cm² level used by the cleaning industry does not pose a significant health risk to most people. Work is currently underway to address this with better standards for testing, contamination levels, and risks to health being developed.
However, until you actually conduct a test you probably won’t have any idea whether or not a property is contaminated. And if it is, will the level of contamination be minor requiring just a clean or major requiring significant remediation?
The first step to knowing is the preliminary surface test. The Narcotect D4D PenTest enables anyone to conduct a test for traces of methamphetamine and other illicit drugs including several of the pre-cursor chemicals used in the manufacture of meth.
Don’t take the risk. Order your D4D PenTest kits before house hunting and be prepared.
