Marijuana Growers Move To The Suburbs, Turn Foreclosed Houses Into Indoor Farms

The New York Times:

VALLEJO, Calif. — On a suburban block with six family homes, palm trees and views of the surrounding green hills, nothing at 110 Windsor Court stood out. Its occupants, who had moved into the foreclosed house a few years earlier, were quiet types.

Until the noise from falling roof tiles alerted neighbors to a fire there one recent morning, and Stephen Snowden, who lived nearby, banged on the front door. Nobody was inside, but firefighters discovered that the house had been converted into a type of illegal business found increasingly in suburbia: a marijuana grow house.

Read the whole story at The New York Times

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Comments

[lawa]

02:57 PM on 05/07/2012

when i saw the headline i thought, audilbly, sooo? i see the risk those growing lights must get dangereously hot. what is bothersome is the title holders of those properties are doing fine.

[loki]

01:26 PM on 05/07/2012

how long before bankers blame this on disgruntle home owners who were foreclosed on like they do vandalism caused to foreclosed homes?

[fishinwithtom]

12:35 PM on 05/07/2012

The most interesting part is that this article appeared in the BUSINESS SECTION. Not that long ago this would have been a LIFE AND STYLE or a LOCAL article.
But honestly, if you are going to run any kind of production facility in the suburbs ( or anywhere for that matter) invest in a fire protection system. They obviously had electricity (2 years in the same house) so H 2O would have been the easy part.

[V-rod]

11:41 AM on 05/07/2012

Don't let U-Turn find out.

[TaShanna Turnipseed]

01:10 PM on 05/07/2012

lmbo right !!!

[miz mendo]

11:38 AM on 05/07/2012

I love cannabis. I love to grow it, consume it, and give it away. Just sitting in my pot garden hanging out with the beautiful girls is healing. What I don't love is the needless waste of resources that are currently driving this underground economy. For instance, last year, 1% of all the electricity generated in the US was used to grow indoor pot. In Humboldt County here in Northern California, electrical use DOUBLED last year, while the population remained the same. A friend of mine told me yesterday he flew into Humboldt from the coast recently, and there are 3 times as many greenhouses as last year. All for a medicinal plant that prefers being outdoors, solar-powered. Kooky.

[Kasado]

01:59 PM on 05/07/2012

Use LED lamps. Less energy usage.

[miz mendo]

11:30 AM on 05/08/2012

Use the sun. Clean and free.

[Fred Hood]

11:24 AM on 05/07/2012

California...in 1996 became the first state to pass.... by a vote of the people to allow cannabis sales when prescribed by a doctor....millions of scrips later.......the doctors get feedback like......this cured my depression........my Parkinson is better......I no longer have joint pain.......my social anxiety is cured......It saved my life......I sleep like a rock now.......I FEEL BETTER NOT HIGH...they are hurting the 681 billion dollar pharmaceutical industry..........who pay congress to keep this under wraps.......it would hurt their profits so much they say enslave more poor people as long as we make the billions...........spend as much tax payer money as it takes to protect us........you know we will take care of you guys.....we the legal guys make synthesized chemicals which under a microscope......are identical to the ones you put 1.8 million poor in cage every year.....and waste 100 billion of our tax money......we the “Legal Boys” sell them all thanks to congress and its corrupt laws......and congress loves the kickbacks

[Zagman]

11:42 AM on 05/07/2012

Please get your information right. Doctors can not write a prescription for Cannibis, that would be against Federal Law. Under state law they can wright a recommendation. That is a First Ammendment RIGHT under freedom of speech.

[Fred Hood]

03:10 PM on 05/07/2012

excuse me...you missed the point

[Fred Hood]

11:21 AM on 05/07/2012

HYPOCRITICAL

The legal drug guys know the income potential of cannabis......so they went to our lawmakers and paid them...........congress moved the element THC ( the active ingredient in weed) to a lower drug category...............allowing the legal drug boys to produce Marinol..... a legal patented drug................if this does not prove the conspiracy against us what does...........so if you can chemically synthesize THC and pay our lawmakers enough...........you to can sell legal weed as a medicine....THEY DO

[Fred Hood]

11:19 AM on 05/07/2012

SIMPLE FACTS....

if legal millions of Americans could grow sell and enjoy this herb.. and prosper from the profits

the legal drug boys would lose billions a year not selling foul chemicals this herb would replace

the legal boys know they cannot control this herb if legal

they pay congress to keep illegal

the feds continue to spend 100 billion a year and put 1.8 million of us in jail ever year

it is safer and better for you than beer and many foul chemicals it would replace

win win for us total loss for this industry... built on the back of our children

LEGALIZE AND PROSPER

[Dogvane]

10:59 AM on 05/07/2012

Gee, quiet neighborhood, families, moms, kids, soccer practice, the marijuana industry really did a number on that community.

[ElCojonuo]

10:54 AM on 05/07/2012

Growers are the only ones that can afford them.

[alice sophia]

10:42 AM on 05/07/2012

If anybody from BAIN reads this, you can be sure that Mitt & Co. will clean out the pot, and turn those homes into a profit. Alexithemic Mitt was not kidding when he advised or hoped for homes to go into foreclosure----think of the $$$$$ to be made for BAIN type businesses off of the heartache and misery of the people who were foreced to leave those homes vacant.

[trussia1]

11:21 AM on 05/07/2012

And smoke all the pot too while doing it!

[Kasado]

10:32 AM on 05/07/2012

So, some criminal buys/rents a house and grows weed with a marginally heightened chance of it burning to the ground. The growers are quiet and inconspicuous with no associated crime.
I fail to see why I should be concerned.

The foreclosed houses used in this manner are only a small percentage of a large inventory of empty unused houses. Which, should be more of an issue than the minor problem of home grows.
Just maybe, it is the usual fear mongering of an increasingly ineffectual militant law enforcement cabal that fear that they are losing their authority over the people and possibly loss of some of their budget.

[fumes]

10:43 AM on 05/07/2012

that's it..

the anals are squeeking!

[sunflwer1975]

09:59 AM on 05/07/2012

We need to take these home and house the homeless, we have nearly 4x as many homes empty in this country than homeless, 39% of the homeless population are children under 18. 3.5 million homeless doesn't begin to take in account for the people doubling up or finding other ways to stay sheltered outside the system.

[DJEhl]

10:31 AM on 05/07/2012

Or we could legalize and use some of the massive revenue that would generate to help fight poverty.

[trussia1]

11:22 AM on 05/07/2012

Sounds like a good plan to me!

[Lucho13]

09:56 AM on 05/07/2012

People want to use it , people will buy it , people will pay sales tax to buy it.

Pot IS A WEED that grows from the ground up . Whats the problem ??

The government is not our mom and daddy ...It should not have that power.


Lucho 13

[GraphicMatt]

09:55 AM on 05/07/2012

It is mind boggling how behind some news media outlets are. Newsflash guys, people have been using suburban homes for years as grow houses. YEARS!

[DJEhl]

10:37 AM on 05/07/2012

Did you even read the headline let alone the article? The story is that the amount of ops is increasing do to foreclosures.

[GraphicMatt]

10:41 AM on 05/07/2012

Gee thanks, that's also been going on FOR YEARS!!! Maybe you've noticed that the foreclosure issue didn't just start yesterday?

[TheAntiOkie]

11:02 AM on 05/07/2012

amount of ops is increasing do [sic] to foreclosures.

If you wish to be respected here, learn some English and sentence construction....and the differences between do dew & due.

[JScott]

11:36 AM on 05/07/2012

YUp not news-in So. Call places like Rowland Height, Hacienda Height, San Gabriel they find em all the time. Neighbors are away at work they don't notice the dumpsters with all the wallboard in em and that no one is ever home, they tear out walls to make large rooms to grow pot and don't notice the window coverings (shutter, drapes, blinds) are ALWAYS drawn, and the smart ones always have gardners come in to maintain the landscape so they don't draw attention. Then there's yeah a fire or a sudden bust with helicopters and such. Oh and often there's meth labs too but they are usually in the high desert outside of Lancaster and Palmdale.