Spokanes escalating fight against methamphetamines has drug an unsuspecting group of victimslandlordsinto the scourge.


Law-enforcement authorities expect to bust around 100 methamphetamine labs here this year, and an estimated 90 percent of such labs are operated in rental properties. The number of busts is expected to double from last year, and landlords are left to clean up the mess, including costly decontamination work.


Those costs could total in the hundreds of thousands of dollars here this year, based on cleanup industry estimates, making the business of renting housing unprofitable for some.


Aalianza Inc., one of four certified meth-lab decontamination contractors in the Spokane area, has seen its business double this yearwith 30 meth cleanups in the Spokane area so fardue to the increased busts, says Greg Bayes, the companys owner.


I dont expect it to change, not for a while, Bayes says. It will stay this way until meth goes out of favor.


Jim Mahoney, president of the Inland Empire Rental Association, says, This problem has come in under the radar for us.


The cost to a landlord to clean up a rental unit that had housed a meth lab typically runs between $2,500 and $4,000, but can run as much as $10,000, Bayes says. For a typical cleanup, that amounts to between five and eight months of rental income for a $500-a-month unitand those costs dont include the loss of rental income during cleanup or the cost of any remodeling needed after a unit is decontaminated.


Mike LaScuola, environmental health specialist at the Spokane Regional Health District, says toxic materials produced by current methods employed to make meth cause respiratory irritation, although it isnt clear what health effects renters might suffer when living in a former meth house that had yet to be decontaminated.


We are speculating (that landlords use) caution because of what we just dont know, LaScuola says.


He suggests that regulations should be changed to address the current methods of making meth, which might defray some of the cleanup costs.


Bayes says certified decontamination involves removing carpets and other nonporous materials that cant be cleaned, disposing of a meth makers contaminated personal belongings, pressure washing surfaces a couple of times, and then testing to see if any traces of the contamination remain.


If a house or apartment has central heating, Bayes recommends cleaning out the air ducts so that any contamination in them doesnt blow back into the unit. That process costs an additional $1,000 for a typical house, but isnt required by law and is left to the property owners discretion.


Mahoney says the problem is forcing landlords to monitor activity in rental units more aggressively and to scrutinize prospective tenants backgrounds.


City of Spokane Police Lt. Darrell Toombs says a city-county drug task force has made more than 90 lab responses so far this year, 51 in which the operators of the labs have been busted. The others were cases in which labs had been removed before authorities arrived or lab components were found boxed up in vehicles or dumped elsewhere.


He says law-enforcement officials expect to respond to between 175 and 180 reports of meth labs this year, compared with 73 last year, when 50 busts were made.


While the problem is serious and the drug is dangerously addictive, a meth-making operation usually isnt as elaborate as the images conjured up by the word lab. LaScuola says meth makers cook everyday household productsthings such as iodine, engine-starter fluid, and certain kinds of medication for colds, among other ingredientson a kitchen stove or portable propane burner to produce the drug.


There are exceptions, but in most cases, meth-lab operators here make the drug only in batches large enough to feed their personal habits, perhaps with some left over to sell for money to buy supplies for the next batch. It takes two or three hours to make a batch of meth, and the labs are small and can be boxed up and moved within minutes, LaScuola says.


In some cases, landlords are being surprised by contamination caused by meth cooks who have yet to be caught by police.


Landlord Kim Hickethier says she evicted a tenant from one of her West Central rental homes this past spring, but didnt know the tenant had been making meth there until the kitchen walls turned pink when her regular cleaning crew washed them. She called the Spokane Regional Health District and learned that pink walls are a telltale remnant of meth manufacturing due to some of the emissions during the cooking process.


To decontaminate the property, she used a triple-rinse method suggested by the health district to clean the kitchen and nearby laundry room walls, floors, counter tops, and appliances. She repainted the units interior and replaced the stove on which meth appeared to have been cooked. Afterward, she had a certified company test the house for meth contamination, and it tested negative.


Hickethier estimates that her total cleanup cost came in at about $1,000, not including the new stove. She says that might not sound like much, but if you look at the profit margin of a rental property, its significant. She says shell have to lease out that house, which rents for $500 a month, for up to one year before she begins making a profit again.


Mahoney has had to deal with the meth problem not only as a board member of the rental association, but also as a property owner. He owns 23 rental houses and duplex units, mostly in the West Central neighborhood, and has had meth-related incidents in two of his units.


On a wintry day earlier this year, men in white protective suitslooking like the Empires storm troopers in Star Warsshowed up at a West Central duplex Mahoney rents out, confiscated a boxed-up lab from one of the units, and arrested the occupant for manufacturing meth.


The bust confirmed Mahoneys fears. He had suspected the tenant was involved in illegal drug activity, and Mahoney had been trying for some time to evict the man, who had covered the units windows with dark plastic, changed its door locks, drilled a peephole into the front door, and refused to answer when Mahoney knocked persistently, even though other people came and went frequently.


After the bust, Mahoney got his duplex unit back. Along with it, however, came the onerous task of decontaminating the rental property.


State law requires a property owner to hire a state-certified cleanup contractor to decontaminate properties in which meth has been cooked, but Mahoney says police determined that his unit had been used only to store the lab and found no evidence that the drug actually had been made there. Mahoney had seen a large van parked in front of the unit with extension cords running to it, and he says he believes the tenant cooked the meth in that van.


Mahoney didnt have to hire a certified cleanup contractor, but still had to clean the unit thoroughly and hire a decontamination company to test it for traces of meth contamination. He says the entire process cost him about $2,800.


In his second meth-related problem, Mahoney recently evicted a tenant and now is investigating the extent of the contamination in the unit. He says it appears as though meth was cooked there.


Hickethier says that in some cases, landlords might find the cost of cleanup to be more than theyre willing to spendand just abandon properties.


Indeed, the health districts LaScuola says that while landlords typically follow the cleanup rules, some have walked away from properties and let a bank repossess them or the city or county take them for unpaid property taxes.


When they keep former meth-lab houses, landlords must deal with the stigma such homes are branded with in a neighborhood, as well as possible future liability.


If a child becomes sick there, the first thing that will jump on my radar is, is this meth related? says Mahoney. Though he doesnt believe he could be held liable in such a situation, that liability would be investigated.


Labs typically are found in poorer neighborhoods, but one area doesnt stand out above others as being particularly plagued with the problem.


LaScuola says the health district has posted about 55 living unitshouses and apartmentsin Spokane County so far this year as unfit for occupancy because they had housed meth labs. Most had been busted by police, he says.


While more meth labs are popping up than before, cleaning up such labs is easier than it was just a few years ago, LaScuola says. He says meth makers used a different manufacturing process prior to 1995 that was horrendously toxic.


That cooking process, which generally took three days and required a much more elaborate setup than now, emitted mercury and lead vapors, off-gasses that affect the central-nervous system. Cleanup of those earlier labs cost tens of thousands of dollars, but there were substantially fewer of them, and they typically were located in rural areas.


Some of the materials used to make meth with the old process were outlawed in 1995, so meth makers came up with the current methods, which require only common household products.


Because of his costly experiences with meth, Mahoney has toughened up his tenant-screening process. Now, before hell rent a unit out, he requires prospective tenants to get a co-signer who owns property in Spokane County. That way, if any cleanup work needs to be performed, he can go after the co-signer and place a lien on his or her property.


He also visits prospective tenants current residences, in addition to calling their references, before renting out a unit. Even with 10 of his rentals currently vacant, he isnt making exceptions to his tough new policies.


Its cheaper for us to keep a unit empty than to have a troubled unit, he says.