Residents of former meth labs sickened by fumes and residue

Homes may change hands often before their hazardous past is revealed.

CINCINNATI (AP) — No Ohio law regulates the cleanup or disclosure of homes and apartments that are used as labs to cook methamphetamine, leaving unwitting future tenants at risk from poisonous fumes and residue.

Cindy Wilson, 33, says soon after moving into a rental home in western Hamilton County, she and her four children began suffering from nosebleeds and coughing spasms, symptoms her doctor told her could be caused by exposure to methamphetamine.

Testing by county health officials revealed the property had been used as a meth lab. Fearing for her family’s heath and furious that she had unknowingly moved her children into a contaminated home, Wilson and her family fled.

Wilson now worries that there are thousands of Ohioans just like her. Unlike Kentucky and Indiana, state and local officials in Ohio do not have the authority to force a cleanup of properties used as meth labs, or to notify prospective owners and tenants.

More than 100 houses, apartments and hotel rooms have been used as meth labs in greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky since 2000, according to The Cincinnati Enquirer. They may change hands repeatedly before anyone is aware of their potentially hazardous past.

The stimulate is made by grinding an over-the-counter cold medication and using various chemicals to extract ephedrine. The chemicals include battery acid, fingernail polish remover, paint thinners, sulfuric acid and anhydrous ammonia, a highly caustic fertilizer ingredient.

Exposure to large amounts of meth may cause problems ranging from skin and eye irritation and nausea to severe respiratory problems, depression, liver and kidney damage, leukemia, and other forms of cancer.

“I would say it’s one of the worst drugs there is,” said Jim Liles, head of the Northern Kentucky Drug Strike Force. “If you try it, you could be hooked the first time. In five years, you’ll age 30 years and your teeth will completely rot out. In 10 years, you are dead.”

Although there has been little research on the long-term health affects of living in a former meth lab, there is clearly some risk from lingering meth residue, said John Martyny, who studies contamination and exposure from meth labs at National Jewish Medical and Research Center in Denver. Vapors from cooking meth can spread through the house, sticking to walls and floors and seeping into carpeting, wallpaper and heating ducts. High levels of residue have been found in meth labs that have been vacant for three months, Martyny said.

Meth vapors are particularly harmful to children, he said. “If you moved into a meth home even months afterward with a small child, especially an infant, the odds are the infant would start testing positive for methamphetamine,” Martyny said.

Ohio also has no law that establishes cleanup standards for meth labs. A House bill proposed in March by state Rep. Stephen Dyer, a Democrat from suburban Akron, would ask the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency to establish cleanup standards and create a public database for all vehicles and properties, including hotel rooms, that have served as meth labs.

The hazards from former labs should be a top priority, Dyer said. “They are basically a toxic waste dump,” he said.

However, the cleanup and notification law has faltered in the Legislature. It hasn’t moved beyond the Homeland Security and Veterans Affairs Committee in months.

The committee chairman, Rep. Steve Reinhard, a Bucyrus Republican, said the bill will stay not move until questions are answered about who will perform — and fund — the testing and cleanup of former meth labs.