one of the questions we’re asked most is “how did you find out?”

it’s a reasonable question, especially since we’ve lived here for two years – it’s a sudden realization to come out of nowhere.

my partner’s been having some weird medical issues. we thought it was work related, so we’ve been seeing an occupational therapist, but she hasn’t found anything. in her OT questioning, she asked if anyone else in our household was sick. we brought up that one of our renters had started to have some similarish issues since they started living here, so she instructed that we test.

i’m glad we did. it’s brought up other signs in retrospect, as we read “is that place a meth lab?” lists online and think about things. a neighbor mentioned she thought they were dealing out of here. “aircraft paint stripper” is mysteriously written on the wall of our garage (so is “don’t forget to pay the house” which is my favorite), and from what i’ve learned industrial solvents are often used in meth cooks.

we don’t know if they were cooking here or just smoking. we don’t know what two years of living here has done to our stuff – most of the cleanup guides assume that the stuff in the house was there during the cooking. but apparently contamination travels through the heating system. and it’s freezing out.

our number one recommendation to anyone buying a home now is, obviously, to have a meth test done along with the home inspection. it doesn’t cost too much – and costs pretty much nothing compared to the generally-not-covered-by-insurance cleaning up of your home. i don’t understand why this isn’t regulated by the states already, but just do it.

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