New Law Needed To Address Problem
If you buy an existing home or move into a rental home in Idaho, you could be in for a very dangerous and expensive surprise. Imagine that your lungs inexplicably begin to burn, your eyes begin to weep and you get severe headaches. Your children suffer burns on their hands and knees when they crawl across the floor.
Such chronic health problems, and perhaps even cancer, are caused by the toxic chemical residue from an uncleaned methamphetamine lab.
From January 1998 to April 2000, 170 meth labs were discovered in the five-county Idaho Panhandle. Many more meth labs never are discovered by police before the “cooks” move. Nine out of 10 that are discovered in Idaho never are adequately cleaned because the law doesn’t require it, as it does in Washington.
That means that unsuspecting tenants and home buyers - such as Jon and Kristie Breckon of Spirit Lake - are moving their families into contaminated homes. The fact that the Idaho Legislature has ignored this appalling public health crisis is shameful, but not surprising. Mike Gregory, Idaho’s head environmental health officer, said the Legislature’s strong property rights stance has something to do with its reluctance to act.
The problem is that cleanup can be ruinously expensive for a homeowner or landlord - $10,000 or more - and few insurance companies pay for it.
“If they find out people are getting contaminated or potentially contaminated, maybe we’ll get some laws written up,” Gregory said.
Not surprisingly, calls are coming in to attorneys in Coeur d’Alene from sick tenants who suspect they have unwittingly rented former meth labs in Idaho. The Breckons, who bought a $69,000 house in Spirit Lake, are lucky that the contamination levels in their home are low enough that they can continue to live there - they have no legal recourse against the seller.
Washington has passed a law setting safe standards for chemical exposure. Health officials can force cleanup by threatening condemnation of property. As a result, there currently is just one uncleaned meth lab in Spokane County.
The Idaho Legislature needs to do something to protect tenants, landlords and home buyers. The state should enact a law that sets standards and requires cleanup of meth-contaminated homes. And it should require full documentation of contamination (and cleanup) to future home renters and buyers.
Both Washington and Idaho also need to work with insurance companies to make sure that policies purchased by landlords will cover the costs of meth cleanup. The policies might be more expensive, but at least landlords could protect themselves.
The bottom line is that people’s health is at risk because of this drug menace. It’s time to act.