We had our house in Toronto inspected by the property management company today. The inspector is a super nice man who we met when we first moved in, but this time I was able to offer him a chair to sit in.
As he sat down, he says, "This inspection is to basically make sure that this isn't a Grow-Up operation, or that there isn't extreme wear and tear on the house."
Say what? Seeing the puzzlement on my face, he goes on to explain,
"A Grow-Up operation is when someone rents your house so that they can grow marijuana plants in it. They cut a hole in your foundation and steal power from the hydro company before it gets to the meter. They start the seedlings on the second floor, the medium size plants on the ground floor, and the full plants in the basement. The problem with these houses is that they have industrial size drums of fertilizer, and lots of humidity, and so toxic mold starts growing. So if we don't catch them early, they cause hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage, and most have to be ripped down. They're a real problem in Toronto. We caught two of them last year. They are a bigger issue in Vancouver. But obviously that isn't happening here. We normally do a 3 month inspection as well, but we were in and out of the house for maintenance. If we hadn't been here, we would have done drive-bys, or we have humidity monitors we can walk up and place on the basement windows. Or, they'll vent the exhaust out the chimney, and police helicopters will fly over the city and be able to capture the heat with infrared scanners."
Um. Oh. Right. No, we don't have a Grow-Up operation happening here. The best part? Insurance no longer covers this, because there have been so many claims, so if there is one, you are looking at covering this out of your own pocket. And when you sell, you have to disclose that this happened in your house. Everyone likes to buy a house that had mold and an illegal drug raid. Yikes.
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