Sickly Family Discovers New House Was Once a Meth Lab
When a young Oregon family purchased a foreclosed house last summer they believed they had came across the ideal spot for themselves for the unbeatable price of $36,000. Little did they know that the property they purchased was in fact filled with poison. The home the Hankins family bought happened to be used for a meth laboratory prior to being in foreclosure by Freddie Mac. Crystal meth is a pretty serious issue in Oregon with many people needing to go to meth rehab and receive meth treatment for their destructive addictions. The Hankins’ had no idea that they’d purchased a property that had been full of poisonous chemical substances till Jonathan, Beth and their 2 year old son, Ezra Hankins became sick within the weeks after their move to the home.
Invisible Toxins
Soon after moving to their new house the family began feeling ill. After a short time the family began to encounter problems breathing, Jonathan began having migraines and nosebleeds, while the couples boy developed blisters inside his mouth. They couldn’t figure out why they had been all getting so sick, until finally one of their nearby neighbors informed them that the house that they bought had been utilized as a meth laboratory. The inner walls of the home were full of harmful gases which were gradually poisoning the family. Meth is an unseen toxin and when an individual isn’t on the lookout for it can be very difficult to detect. When the family eventually purchased a contamination kit to evaluate the cleanliness of the air inside their property, they discovered that the contaminant levels were almost 80 times over the legal limit in Oregon.
Might not be an Isolated Occurrence
The dreadful scenario that happened to the Hankins family may not be as unusual as most might believe. Based on nationwide and state data, there are likely in excess of 2.5 million properties in the United States that happen to be polluted with meth. Whilst the majority of these won’t ever end up on the property market prior to being carefully decontaminated, there are still probably quite a few which will fall through the cracks and put young families like the Hankins’ at risk. Only 23 from the 50 states have regulations in place which requires sellers to reveal if the home was ever used as a drug lab, and therefore many buyers have no idea that the home they’re buying could be harmful to their health. The best thing people can do when buying a foreclosed house is do a great deal of research on the property they’re considering.
For the Hankins’ family, they’re now dwelling safe in a home that they rented whilst their meth contaminated house is being taken care of. Decontaminating a meth lab is often an expensive procedure that could cost up to $150,000. In places like Oregon where meth is becoming a real problem and the number of people in meth rehab receiving meth treatment, people need to be careful about the properties they buy.
