apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

The second day in the house our water well died.

You bought a meth lab?! I read the kitchen article linked to above, but I think there's got to be a deeper story behind this choice.

I just bought a co-op in Astoria, Queens and I'm extremely grateful that it hasn't been too rough. For about two weeks I had to live with nuclear margarita green semigloss walls in the bedroom. How the previous owners managed to have two kids in a room like that I have no clue. It actually got greener at night.

wow this is the one for me. lets see.. 2 inches of black "stuff" under the 1985 refrigerator, mold behind the washer, carpenter bees, bats in the attic. yuck. but happy to report that everything is fantastic now (finally).

leaky roof and incompetent roofers. still haunts my dreams.

we just finished putting two coats of primer and two coats of pumice benjamin moore paint on formerly blood red walls in a tiny bedroom that only has one tiny window and no overhead light. It's not a meth lab, but I am shocked at the color choices that the previous owners made - teal in the living room, the blood room, a GOLD hallway, a bedroom with four different colors of blue, and a marigold kitchen.

My worst new home nightmare was about a week after I moved into my first house of my own. I had been watering my front lawn, and when I went to move my sprinkler, I literally fell into my front lawn, down to my waist.

What followed were 18 months of plumbing problems that no matter how much money I threw at them, nobody could seem to fix. This is including two episodes of plumbers opening up a clogged pipe, allowing it to spew raw sewage all over my basement, and walking away to leave me to clean up the mess.

I like to think the worst is over, but long-time home-owners say it's not likely.

I just have to keep reading the post about noisy-sex-apartment-neighbours and reminding myself that owning my own home is better. ;)

I've got nothing to compete with dead cat parts under the stove.

First day in the new apartment, cleaning the bathroom. Under the sink?

A fistful of used condoms.

I kid you not.

Thank you guys, this post made my day!

i hardly think paint color is a disaster....

There was, apparently, a beehive in my childhood home's attic.

that pink hellish kitchen pic comforts me and gives me hope.

after reading these, I'm feeling soooo good about our new-old home we just moved into. we've had pests and backed up sewage, but now the worst is the mary engelbright wallpaper border over the berry vine patterned walls and cupboards. a totally 80's grandma's house!

that pink kitchen is what happens when good AT advice ("to completely change the look of your kitchen on a budget, paint your cabinets") falls in the wrong hands.

I am sooooo lucky. The house was impeccable. My only complaint is neighbour noises. Alas, I suppose that’s not much to do about that.

When I bought my house, the areas that had the least natural lighting all had dark gray feature walls. Mmmm, inviting. The rest of the house was painted a nice neutral off-white, but the previous owners had applied the paint directly to the drywall, no primer or anything! Luckily I noticed before I started repainting!

I think landlords should be required to repaint between tenants. If they want to take it out of the security deposit of the people who slapped up that pink paint, so be it, but no one should have to move into THAT.

In an open concept house, SEVEN different kinds of wallpaper, no baseboards (just tacked up carpet remnants), penis graffitti in the bathroom, mouldy shag carpet in the basement, and a couple dozen beer bottles hid in the dropped ceiling. We bought it after seeing it once because it was cheap and we had to move ASAP. It turned out to be pretty cute once we redecorated.

This is where I get to shine! Except for bats in the attics and walls (still here - don't ask), my house was more or less sound. It was all "just cosmetic," as the real estate broker said. No one tells you how very demoralizing ugly cosmetics can be - and no one admits what a heinous job it is to strip every single inch of wallpaper and carpet from a home. It's just grunt work, yeah, but it's a LOT of grunk work!

I give you my home, weeks before I moved in. (Some of these have been posted before in various threads, but it's worth looking just to appreciate your own home!)

http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb99/mbc1963/House%20Pictures/DRJune03beforecropped.jpg

http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb99/mbc1963/House%20Pictures/LRJune03before.jpg

http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb99/mbc1963/House%20Pictures/BathroomMay04Old-1.jpg

http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb99/mbc1963/House%20Pictures/Kitchencabinetsbefore.jpg

http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb99/mbc1963/House%20Pictures/Kitchenwindowsbefore.jpg

Under the pink shag carpeting was 1938 linoleum:

http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb99/mbc1963/House%20Pictures/Linoleum.jpg

It makes me tired just looking at those photos.

Mary B C,

Too funny! That living room is unreal. Please post a link to the "afters"!

My last place had wallpaper borders on the top AND bottom of nearly every room room. It took forever to get them all off and now that I am done I am moving, go figure.

Yeah, dead cat parts make my washer breaking down immediately look like a walk in the park.

The used stove I just bought had a heroin spoon stashed in it. The spoon was IKEA brand. Figures. Ha!

Mary B C,

That living room makes me think of Sixteen Candles! (Or was is Ferris???)

We're currently pulling up rust orange shag carpeting from the house we just bought. The amount of mold that we've found underneath it is scary, but not surprising--it was the most disgusting and smelly carpet I've ever seen (or smelled). This evening, I'll be scrubbing the foundation with bleach so that the house will eventually be fit for humans to live in.

Also, as I was washing my hands in the kitchen, I heard a trickle of water after I'd turned the water off. The dishwasher was full of dirty water and leaking onto the floor. So, we'll have to fix that now.

This post (and the earlier one that was linked to) has been heartening--it's good to see others have similar (and worse) issues. I'm so disgusted and exhausted by our house that I don't even have the words. I just pray it's decent enough to live in by the time we have to move in at the end of August.

Great post! For the first few months living in our new house, the stench of cat piss was the first thing that hit you when you walked in the door. Apparently the last owners had some problem felines that stayed indoors at all times. When we ripped up the awful linoleum in the kitchen and sunroom, the padding underneath was stained yellow from the stuff and it reeked! After tiling the whole area but still suffering from the smell, we finally found the source: a closet under the stairs that was right by the central air vent and which must have been used as a bad kitty jail. Several coats of Kilz later, we are finally free from the horror!

Lets see...Load-bearing wall paper (take down the paper down comes the wall), mushrooms growing in the bathroom (actuall stems and caps and all), plumbing that sloped the wrong way, dead squirrel in the water heater vent, skunks living under the porch, hideous carpeting (orange shag, that smelled like dog) that when removed revealed wood floors that only had finish on the perimeter (around the rugs), oh and a lovely plaque in the attic that read "Watch and Pray" (we sealed it up behind the insulation (no one wanted to touch it). I am sure there was more.

I feel better about the bad sponge painting, vomit on the verical blinds and used qtips now. Thanks everyone.

Should I mention ablack kitchen cabinet black laminate black, orange bath room tile etc with avocado green fixtures.
A brown bath with dark brown fixtures
did I mention I redid in white "all of them" to spare next owners!!!

I bought a house where every room was wallpapered in gold and black foil --except for the room that was gold and black flocking--and the woodwork was black. I took down all of the paper (it came down in pieces the size of a thumbnail in spite of trying all the advice of experts). Then I painted every single surface and every inch of woodwork in white.

I needed "cleanse my pallet" before deciding on any new paint colors at all.

But the person with the dead cats wins.

Having rehabbed three old houses, I feel like I've experienced almost everything: bats and mice (dead and alive), mold, radon, asbestos in three forms, dog and cat urine, rotten wood, termites, carpenters ants & bees, totally inept DIY from previous owners, leaky roofs and windows, hidwater damage, etc.

Funniest and grossest: dried up human turds under a toilet that wasn't properly connected to the waste pipe.

Grossest and not the least bit funny: raw sewage backing up through floor drain and contaminating all kinds of stuff that was on the floor. I cried when that happened.

Having renovated three old houses, I feel like i've seen most of it by now, including bats at 2 a.m., rotten wood under bathroom tiles, mold and mildew, mysterious roof leaks, infestations of termites and carpenter ants and bees and wasps, cracked joists, sinking support posts, etc.

Funniest and tied for grossest: dried up human turds under a toilet that a previous owner hadn't connected completely to the waste pipe.

Tied for grossest but not the least bit funny: raw sewage overflowing from basement toilet and contaminating a lot of stuff that was on the floor. I cried when that happened.

I have brown hair. There's nothing like unclogging a bathtub drain and pulling out 3 feet of blond hair. No joke!

The guy I bought my condo was a SERIOUS smoker, and before I moved in I had to repaint, re-carpet, and steam-clean the melamine kitchen cabinets. Before steaming, they were so coated in tar that you could stick your hand flat to the front of the cabinet and pull them open.

After I moved in, I had to have the dishwasher and kitchen sink disposal replaced because they'd been connected together when installed. This means that every time I ran the dishwasher, it sucked all the crap out of disposal and dried it on my dishes.

After several years of living there, I found out that (probably the same person) had installed the kitchen drain using a pipe with a slit cut into it, and for the entire life of my apartment building, (15 years or so), the water from my sink had been dripping into the apartment 2 floors below mine. It built up over the years and eventually exploded through the poor neighbor's kitchen wall in a slimy wave of mildew and putrified foodstuffs. They had to replace some of their cabinets, their dishwasher, and the kitchen floor. Since the cut pipe had been installed when the unit was built, the repair costs were covered by insurance.

Those neighbors put their condo up for sale shortly afterward.

Wow, I am in awe, shouldn't a lot of these problems been caught in the home inspection?

we bought a house from a family whose dad had lived there 50 years & chain smoked his way through life. After kilz-ing the walls, we thought we had the smell & problems covered. Turning on a humidifier though made the walls BLEED tar juice down them...it was like the shining!

oh my goodness, we're thinking of buying a "fixer upper" and ya'll are freaking me out!

@ madrid22 : "Watch and Pray" in the ATTIC? That might be the creepiest thing ever. Were they keeping someone up there to watch and pray and this was a reminder? (shudder).

Here are the afters (befores are in a post above). This doesn't even touch the 3 bedrooms, but you get the idea. :) Until you have lived with burlap pine tree wallpaper and pink shag carpeting, you cannot fully appreciate plain cracking plaster walls and wood floors.

http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb99/mbc1963/House%20Pictures/DRJuly09.jpg

http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb99/mbc1963/House%20Pictures/LRNow.jpg

http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb99/mbc1963/House%20Pictures/BathroomNew.jpg

http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb99/mbc1963/House%20Pictures/KitchenCabinetsAfter.jpg

http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb99/mbc1963/House%20Pictures/Kitchenwindowsafter.jpg

AMLitt - there is a story:)...but we didn't know it when we bought the house. It was a tiny house in the midwest that we purchased sight-unseen--crazy, I know!--for basically nothing (coming from DC at least) while my husband was in law school. Our friends had gone to check it out for us, and from the pictures we saw a very cool little 40s home with awesome crown molding and huge baseboards that happened to be a little unloved and horribly decorated. And the inspection report didn't mention anything too alarming.

Moving in was a total shock. I was 8 months pregnant and my husband was a week away from diving into first year of law school. There were a lot of tears! And then a lot of coats of paint! We discovered the meth lab and animal remains well into the process of our deep cleaning...after we were very much committed to the restoration. If it had been early on, I definitely would have thrown in the towel!

However the experience of transforming the house into a place we loved sparked my passion for interior design and creative restorations on a budget.

So there's my long-winded story. All's well that ends well!

Sometime in the past several months, somewhere online, I read about a family that had unknowingly purchased a house that had been used as a meth house. Due to the chemicals used in the preparation of the drug, the house was contaminated and said contamination created serious health problems for members of the current family. Since I can't remember where I read it, I suggest you google for cleaning, decontaminate meth houses, and become aware of potential health problems down the line.

This is a great post! My story isn't fantastic. Just that we had an old smoking swedish man that loved to fry food in our place before us for the last 40 years. The place was almost black and smelled like fried old man cigarettes. We found many cigs around the house. Lots of cig burns all over walls, floors, counters, etc. The place was pretty much a dump. There was rotten food in the fridge. And within a month of moving in, ALL the appliances died. I wouldn't have it any other way though!

OMG THAT PINK KITCHEN

When I rented in Pittsburgh, a very nice couple moved into the apartment next door because the house they bought had been condemed shortly after they closed. Apparently the previous owners had trained their cats to use the heating vents in the floor instead of the litterbox, years of urine caused toxic mold, deteriorated the foundation to the point of being unsafe, not too mention the smell. For the inspection the previous owners had used such an overpowering amount of carpet fresh or similar it wasn't possible to smell anything but the fragrance -- and worse they built false walls in the basement to hide the crumbling foundation. Needless to say my neighbors were suing the previous owner. It has been a cautionary tale for me to keep in mind as I look for a house to buy.

I wonder why people don't discover a lot of these things at home inspections. Or do they get them?

Wooooow. Well, worst for me was the (job provided) 4000 sf house with the bedroom painted in a color I kindly called "Geriatric Barbie Drinking Day-Old Pepto Bismol". The job refused to let me paint!!

Deep cleaning the kitchen drawers was horrifying for the 20 years of crud... but worst was the raw wood under the cabinets, which were backless, built into the wall. You could see and reach easily into the basement. The non-sealed, 250 year old basement. All together now... EWWWWWWWW. THe mold grew up from the basement and (as I discovered to my horror) coated anything you were stupid enough to put in the cabinets.

We moved.

That's it, I'm never buying a house more than 5 years old!! Even if it means I have to rent for the rest of my life.

I knew going in that the previous owner had died and the family had locked her cat and dog in the house for three months until they found homes for them. Needless to say that even though the carpets had been removed the place reeked of pet urine, which was why I'd been able to buy the place at such a cheap price. I bought 5 gallons of white vinegar and just dumped them all over the floors after opening all the windows and 3 days later the smell was gone.

What I didn't anticipate was that the previous owner's husband lacked basic electrical training so he'd strung extension cords from various plugs throughout the house through the walls into other rooms to act as outlets. He'd helpfully stapled the extension cords to hold them in place and then had plastered over them to make them more charming. I recall there was even one extension cord that powered the hanging light over the landing to the basement.

The real kicker though was that the electrical work in the attic was so old and spongy that the insulation was rotting off the bare wires so there had been a number of small fires in the attic before I followed my nose one morning and discovered the source of the smoke before the whole house burned down. What freaked me out was that the post that had burned was directly above my baby's crib! I ended up replacing all the wiring which cost a small fortune but was worth every penny. Oh, and I had to replace the roof as well because it was leaking down through the walls and the plumbing was ancient as well so ditto for replacing all that too.

At the time there wasn't a home inspection because I made my payments directly to the mortgage of the original owner
so there wasn't a home inspection. At the time I wondered why but I eventually figured out why. I lived there for a couple of years after replacing all the basic stuff.

The next house I bought which I've currently lived in for 12 years was brand new and the worst problem I had to deal with was the overpowering smell of new carpets and a neighbor who built his fence about 3 feet across my property line. Minor compared to what I went through with the last place.

I really can't compete with cat parts and bathroom mushrooms. Geez! Well anyway, my current house had wallpaper everywhere, sometimes four different ones in the same room. Very disordered thinking there. Of course every last scrap of it was not only applied wrong but had mold behind it. Joy. So that's been endless torment trying to remedy.

Beyond that, the weirdest thing that happened was when I was in the act of removing a rickety old handmade shoe cabinet in the closet and suddenly all this old, petrified candy started raining down on my head. I'm guessing the two-sandwiches-short-of-a-picnic lady who owned the place before us had something to do with that.

Of course this is all nothing when compared to my previous home, which was thoroughly haunted. I'll take candy showers over phantom knife throwing any day of the week!

cat parts?!
yeah, I've got nothing.

But I, too, worry about the ex - meth lab status of your home. Because, like gatorsx4, I read an article (perhaps the same as gatorsx4?) about a family who had some serious health issues due to their house having been a meth lab.
The article I read was in the NY times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/14/us/14meth.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=meth%20lab&st=cse

Well, we're 'leasing to own' a house, but NO WAY NO HOW would we ever buy this place...maybe the property, tear down this house and start new?!

When we moved in, hubby called to get the electric turned on, and the main breaker wouldn't work! Rental Agency expected *US* to fix it...um, since there was no power to the house when we looked at it, how could we have known it wasn't working? THEY fixed it on their dime.

The house had only 2 appliances, a dishwasher (brand new) and a micro-hood. We purchased a washer, dryer, fridge & stove. The appliance center came to hook up the washer and dryer...and the washer plumbing was all screwed up.

Toilets backed up and drained into our bathtubs. Called the plumber...fixed that (had to snake it out with the 'industrial size' snake...he also replaced the bibs for the washer connections.

There were doors for the closets (bifold), but they weren't ON...I've managed to put 3 out of 4 back on, but the one for the pantry door will NOT stay on. I gave up on that.

Neither bathroom had any towel racks whatsoever. We got them. No windows had any coverings...started off with tension rods, and then eventually moved up to 'mini-blinds.' I've since added regular curtain rods, because living in Arizona, it's just tooooooooo hot w/o curtains & only these cheap vinyl miniblinds.

I found about 3 half large buckets of paint up in the crawl space. There were cable outlets throughout the house, but apparently it was for a satellite system, because when I unscrewed the plate, the cord was cut off! So I filled the holes & spackled over them.

The garbage disposal plug underneath the kitchen sink had the grounding part cut off, so it would fit in the socket with the dishwasher plugged in at the same time. Hubby rewired the disposal, and we found these outlet things that 'turn' and stuck the new plug back into it so both will now fit.

The lightswitches on the walls to all the bedrooms didn't control the ceiling fan/ lights...and no outlets ran to them. We had an electrician come over and he figured out which switches were controlled... so now when we walk into a bedroom, and turn on a switch it goes to a lamp. No more fumbling in the dark for the ceiling fan/light chains hanging. Oh, the electrician told us that the micro-hood was pulling too much amperage and that's why the lights dim when we use it (it's plugged into the outlet in the cupboard above the stove!)

There's no garage door opener remote for our garage door...just have to push a button inside the garage to activate it. The unit is SO OLD it doesn't take the replacement remote controls. (Not that it matters, coz we have our garage stuffed anyhow!)

Backyard has a broken sprinkler system. We have plenty of dirt back there growing very well!!

The ceramic tile that was laid in the family room has grout coming up...floor has cracked and shifted. We can also feel a crack when walking in the dining room where there IS carpeting.

The walls are shifting due to the foundation being screwed up...last year hundreds of ants invaded the master bedroom. Come to find out, there was a 1 inch gap between the southern wall and the foundation. We had dead weeds stuck in there! We tore back the carpeting, sprayed the heck out of the area to kill all the ants, scraped up the GLUE that had held down the previous carpeting...sprayed expanding foam, then neatened it up after it dried, and put the carpeting back down. No more ants!

We suspect there's mold in at least ONE wall in one of the bedrooms. We bought an ionic air cleaner and with it being in that one bedroom, it was getting dirty all the time. The wall faces the north east, but gets absolutely no sun exposure because the garage blocks the entire wall. We ended up moving our son to a smaller bedroom and that same ionic cleaner only needs to be cleaned about once a month now!

Our lease is up the end of October, and even though I do NOT relish moving, I will be very happy to get out of this nightmare of a house. As the electrician said, "It looks great on the surface, but don't scratch below that surface!" NO Kidding!

Wow. My mom is a real estate agent (she helped us buy our house, so we definitely got a home inspection) and I've heard plenty of horror stories. Most of them, at this point, are funny: the pot-bellied pig roaming the backyard, the rodent infestations, the hideous paint, etc.
In my own home, we had the sellers replace the chimney after an inspection discovered a 1" gap between the lining and the chimney itself. We were about to burn our entire row of townhomes down!

As far as those who are frightened by all these stories... yes, homeownership is work, but we love it. And for every story here, there are tons of people who had a much easier time getting their house into a livable state.

And, as the daughter of a real estate agent, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE walk through the house yourselves and get a home inspection!

after moving into my row house in philadelphia i discovered when i took down a sagging plaster ceiling in one of the bed rooms that the main ridge beam of the roof had snapped and had fallen on one of the joists above the ceiling. the roof line above looked fine on the inspection and there seemed to be no deflection in the roof when we stood on it. what i had anticipated to be a $2k reroofing job turned out to be about $8k because they had to remove every layer of roof that the house had ever had. there is so much weight up there it caused all kinds of structural damage including shifting the front wall about two inches away from the floor. i havent tackled the wall yet and am debating starbolting it to keep it from moving anymore, or just ripping it down and putting up a new facade. oh, the joys of not maintaining your house for two decades.. i also found a few rats nests in the walls, and discovered that even though the house had been "rewired" all they did was hook up romex wire to the old knob and tube and put in new light switches. the house was a foreclosure due to someone trying to flip it poorly and ending up losing the house, so it's not like it would even be worth suing over because still the house was a great deal and even though i am NOWHERE near finished, it's been a really interesting process.

Look, There is no freaking excuse for not getting an inspection.

You don't wait for the seller to do it for you...you hire one yourself! They are worth every penny.

There is nothing wrong with buying a house that needs work but do your homework.

In our apartment we can SEE THROUGH our bathroom floor into the unit below us. Apparently the last guy who lived here decided he didn't like the linolium (which is still in the kitchen and frankly, I don't blame him) so he ripped it all up! This building is 140 years old and below the tiles, there was nothing but the wooden support beams that have dried and warped and shifted apart. Under the beautiful clawfoot bathtub was a mountain of mold and we constantly hear from the guy below us that water is dripping down- what do you want us to do about it? If anyone else in our building is showering or washing dishes when we shower, we lose all the hot water. The kitchen is a pale yellow with BRIGHT RED cabinets and no vent above the stove or windows. I don't think the baseboards had EVER been cleaned before we moved in, and there is absolutely no way that anyone here has ever even heard of painters tape. Ugh- it's such a nightmare. To make it worse, my boyfriend forbids me to put money into painting because we want to move asap and he doesn't want us wasting money.
Oh, and all the hallways reak of garbage (from directly outside the back door- we neighbour various restaurants) and b.o. (the alcoholic guy downstairs I very much doubt has ever showered or worn deoderant).

Every day I come home I seriously want to end my life. Your website is my only source of sanity.

Oh to be young and poor!

Inspections are only as good as the inspectors who give them.
We were rushed to do the inspection (day after I had our daughter and was in the hospital) & used an inspector recc'd by our realtor. He missed a leaking toilet (I had photos of the blue water stains on the tile below the the wall-mounted toilet,) lousy well pump, and the leaking boiler which went up 2 weeks after we moved in to the tune of 6k...
I still kick myself for not postponing the inspection or just going. My husband was there w/ his parents, who I think were a huge distraction- along w/the seller's agent. I am still so bitter about this- because in the end he missed probably about 9k worth of stuff.

The heating oil wasn't delivered as scheduled, and all 11 antique radiators froze and exploded before we even moved in.

1 inch thick of Linoleum flooring, by my count 8 different floor styles. Nailed, stapled and glued down. Black and white checker board, red and white paisley, black or brown paisley, Armstrong peel and stick carpet like stuff [cause of the smell by the way, mildew yak]. A Grey, Red and Orange floor, carpet tacked down [Don’t ask because I don’t know.] Some yellow looking thing I can’t describe.

How do I know it was an inch? A pillow and a ruler after I took up a small section to see the work I’d need to do.

A pry bar is girl’s best friend.

That really stinks czg, it really does, and the first time I bought a house I used the "realtor suggested" inspector. Was it a mistake? Yes, but there was really nothing wrong with the house. So the next time I bought a house I had an inspector reffered to me by a friend, that way, they are working for ME not the realtor who just wants to make sure the house sells.

okay so my nightmare isn't half as bad as some of these but it was not fun for me. a month after signing a 1 year lease and moving into my last apartment, a slew of bugs came flying through a tiny hole in one of my door frames. i had no idea why the little buggers kept invading pieces of tape and my textbooks. needless to say, i was grossed out and told my apartment manager. she tells me, "oh. i guess the termites are back. they're here every time it gets hot. we'll just plug up the hole." what the heck?! anyone that has had termites knows that they will just make a new hole (which they did).

i never realized how much these things can eat until i had to buy a new bed, 2 book shelves, a printer stand, picture frames, and a desk. my furniture looked like swiss cheese after just a week. i was in grad school at the time and had to explain to people why my textbooks had holes in most of the pages too.

needless to say, i did not renew my lease. i'm just waiting to hear on the news that this apartment building was eaten by termites. (the owners refuse to treat the buildings because it's too costly. wait until you have no building at all lady.)

http://labmade.etsy.com

Thanks to all concerned about our family's health re. the meth lab. The lab was in the detached garage. We had an air specialist inspect for toxins after we realized the type of activity that went on in our home prior to moving in, and we passed. So hopefully we won't be dying of any meth related illnesses in the near future...

as for home inspections, we got one, and our home passed with no mention of anything that we found later. What we learned is

a) as czg said, the inspection is only as good as the inspector. This is hard if you're moving to a totally new area, but ask around for multiple recommendations.

b) BE AT YOUR HOME INSPECTION. this we didn't do...not very smart...

Don't let this post scare you away from buying a home! If you can afford it, and you feel you can infuse some sense into a neglected home, then by all means do it! Despite all the horrors, fixing up ours was a great experience, and we learned a lot. Plus we were able to sell the house for a profit even in a terrible market. Your efforts can go a long way!

You should be very concerned if the home you buy or rent was previously used as a meth lab. I hear from people all over the U.S., who have gotten sick from living in a meth lab home. Some have rented the homes without being told by the landlord. Others have bought homes at a "good price". You should be especially careful if the home was sold as a foreclosure.

Homes that have been used to manufacture meth are considered to be hazardous waste sites by the EPA and health departments. No one should live in them until they have been properly decontaminated. If you buy a home and later find out it was used to make meth by the previous occupants, you will get stuck with the bill for decontaminating the house. The cost of testing and decontaminating the house can run as high as $150,000. Some homes can't be cleaned and have to be demolished.

Before you rent or buy learn what the signs of a former meth lab are and learn how to protect yourself BEFORE you suffer from the health and financial consequences that come hand-in-hand with a contaminated meth lab home. Many people have told me that they have had no choice but to let their home fall back in to foreclosure and claim bankruptcy, because they couldn't afford the decontamination cost. Be especially careful before buying or renting a home if you have children or if you plan to have children. The health problems can be devastating.

If you would like to learn more about meth lab homes, please visit methlabhomes.com to read what's happened to others who didn't know about them before they rented or bought their home. Clean up contractors estimate that there are somewhere between 1 million and 1.5 million homes in the U.S. right now that have been used as meth labs. Buyer beware.

Dawn, founder
methlabhomes.com