PLEASE PASS ALONG TO ALL YOUR FAMILY, FRIENDS, BUSINESS ASSOCIATES AND CLIENTS.

Perhaps you've already read this if you subscribe to REALTOR online Mag. or other RE mags and blogs but I thought it important enough to share even if redundant. We have personally run across this in Mobile and Manufactured home resale, re-fi and reverse mortgage endeavors that our company has been involved with over the years.

It is very prevelant all throughout Riverside and San Bernardino and even outliying rural San Diego areas i.e. Anza, Borrego Alpine, Cedar. etc. You can also add remote places like Victorville, Apple Valley, Lucerne Valley, Barstow, , the entire Central Valley area i.e. Bakersfield, Taft, Visallia, Fresno, Sacramento, Stockton, etc.

These Meth Lab producers love Manufactured homes in these areas because of the cost for a land home package or cheap rent and their remoteness to densley populated areas and law enforcement. Add to that a minimal risk of detection due to conspicuous odors and activities associated with this industry. Please read, retain and share. You can actually get caught up in an ugly law suit for not disclosing this and believe me ignorance is no excuse.

5 Signs Your Listing May Have Once Been a Meth Lab

By Melissa Dittmann Tracey

The New York Times ran an article this week (”Illnesses Afflict Homes With a Criminal Past” by Shaila Dewan and Robbie Brown) that details a story about a family who moved into a spacious home in Winchester, Tenn., only to soon start battling years of illness — from breathing problems to seizures and migraines to kidney problems.

Their home was making them sick.

Five years after moving into the home, the family discovered the home had once been used as a meth lab.

And apparently these contaminated residences are not all that uncommon. What’s more, some may even be hitting your local market.

“Federal statistics show that the number of clandestine meth labs discovered in the United States rose by 14 percent last year, to 6,783, and has continued to increase,” the New York Times reports.

View a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration map of meth lab incidents by state to see how prevalent it is in your area: http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/concern/map_lab_seizures.html

Chemist Lynn Riemer Of The North Metro Drug Task Force provides the following list of signs a meth lab may have been present in a home:

1. Yellow discoloration on walls, drains, sinks and showers.

2. Blue discoloration on valves of propane tanks and fire extinguishers.

3. Fire detectors that are removed–or taped off.

4. Burning in your eyes, itchy throat, a metallic taste in your mouth, or breathing problems when in the home.

5. Strong odors that smell similar to materials often found in a garage, such as solvent and paint thinner, or odors of cat urine or ammonia.

About 20 states have passed laws that require meth contamination cleanup. Cleanup can be costly, though. The family described in The New York Times article would need $30,000 or more to get the necessary cleanup, and that amount doesn’t even take into account their medical bills from living in a contaminated house for so long.

Have you ever come across a house you suspected was once used as a meth lab?