Grow op busted in Paradise Valley
Categories: Peachland News
Dec 172010
Contributed
On December 16 the West Kelowna RCMP Detachment along with Kelowna Air3 and Kelowna Police Dog Services executed a search warrant in the 4800 block of Paradise Valley Drive in Peachland .
The search revealed a sophisticated marijuana grow operation with approximately 1,860 marijuana plants in various stages of growth and an illegal hydro electrical bypass as well as two loaded firearms, a 22 cal Ruger and a sawed off 410 shot gun.
The tenants were not home at the time but once located will be facing charges of Production of a Controlled Substance for the purpose of trafficking, theft of Hydro and possession and unsafe storage of a firearm.
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I used to rent apartments and I’ll never do residential rental ever again.
The three am phone calls from impossibly dense renters, the shocking damage that can be done in just a few months, the frequency of unpaid rent. Ugh! Like I say, never again.
You’re risking a minimum $300,000 asset against income of maybe $14,000 a year – a sub-5% return on investment. Once you factor in wear and tear, insurance, municipal taxes you’re lucky not to lose 1-2% per year. Residential rental only works in an inflationary market where the house is growing in equity value.
Part of the trouble is the BC residential tenancy act which gives the landlords few rights. A proper, fair law would mean that landlords could rent out their properties safely, so more would and rental rates would go down. Everyone would win.
I have two properties, one is empty and it’ll remain that way until I sell it. No way I’ll risk renting it out. $1,200 in income vs $300,000 damage. No thanks!
As much as I agree with you with respect to grow-ops being costly…not all tenants are growing..not all tenants are bad and I think having your landlord walking through your house monthly is an invasion of privacy..that is just sanity..
Hi Jim. I agree with you about invading the privacy of tenants not being warranted. Having been a (responsible) tenant, a homeowner, and a landlord, I am very sensitive to having my privacy breached.
However, as a landlord, If I sign a year’s lease for my $300k house, walk away for the year and just collect the cheques, and someone is trashing it without my knowledge, how is that better?
To mitigate against the possibility of an uninsured loss from a grow-op, a landlord would have to charge huge rents. Tenants (the honest working ones) wouldn’t be able to afford the rent. Only drugfolks could afford to rent. See what I mean.
I think if both parties know upfront that there would be a walkabout (NOT a search) on the first Monday of each month at 5pm, there would be no issue. The landlord would then be in a strong position to claim any losses on insurance on the basis that they were being responsible. The tenant would also see that the landlord is available to note any issues requiring fixing.
The walk through wouldn’t even have to go into many rooms. Once you’ve smelled a pot farm, you can smell it from a long way off.
(NB: under existing legislation, a landlord can already enter their property by giving at least 24 hrs written notice)
*no comment on grow-ops, enforcement or such*
An open comment to anyone who owns and rents their house:
Please write in the lease that you (or the property management company) will be walking through the house and outbuildings once per month.
Note that your insurance company will almost certainly not cover your loss.
Note that the municipality will probably condemn your house due to the hydro bypass / mould from humidity / structural hacking of walls & floors for ventilation.
Having a tenant put a grow-op in your house will likely cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars in repairs and diminished property value when you sell.
Let’s not have any more victims who are unknowingly providing rental housing to grow-ops.
Sanity?