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If you are fortunate enough to have a job in this economy, and even more fortunate to have secured a mortgage commitment from a bank to buy a home and, having hit the Trifecta, found a foreclosed property in the neighborhood of your choice at a great price, new trends are suggesting you take one step further by requesting a full home inspection and buy a simple 50 dollar chemical test kit.  

Your health and/or your life (as well as that of your family) may depend upon it.

Buying a foreclosed house from government-sponsored Freddie Mac means a family may be informed about being responsible for detecting hazards like lead paint and asbestos, but there is no requirement from real estate agents or Freddie Mac to warn a potential purchaser about drug activity in the home.

The Hawkins family purchased a home in Klamath Falls, Oregon for $36,000.

"We said, 'It needs a little bit of love, but it's got good bones,'" Jonathan Hankins recalled. "We just had no idea that those bones were poisonous."

Within days of moving in this past summer, Beth Hankins, an ER nurse, started experiencing breathing problems. Then Jonathan got migraine-like headaches and nosebleeds. By the third week, their 2-year-old son, Ezra, developed mouth sores.

"He couldn't even drink water without being in pain," said Jonathan, 32.
They were about to schedule doctor visits when a neighbor shared the bad news: 2427 Radcliffe was a former meth house.

The family ordered a $50 testing kit and had the lab expedite the results, which revealed a contamination level nearly 80 times above Oregon Health Authority limits.

Incidents such as this are not isolated. Only 23 states have laws which require full disclosure.

It's a Catch-22 that Joe Mazzuca of Meth Lab Cleanup, a national remediation and training company, predicts others could find themselves in. Based on national and state data, Mazzuca conservatively estimates there are 2.5 million meth-contaminated homes in the U.S. "The signs and indicators aren't always there," he said. "You don't always see the meth residue. It's extremely dangerous stuff."

His concern was echoed at a congressional hearing in August on the efforts to curb domestic methamphetamine production.Drug czar Gil Kerlikowske, head of the president's Office of National Drug Control Policy, testified that "U.S. meth lab seizure has more than doubled between 2007 and 2010, and these labs pose a major threat to public safety and the environment."

Mazzuca said the problem "is off the charts. We average a call every three to five minutes." One of those recent calls came from Michigan, a state with no disclosure law, where a father unknowingly purchased a meth-contaminated home. "He just buried his 14-year-old daughter after living in it for two years," Mazzuca said. "I could tell you stories like that for days."

With or without disclosure laws, Mazzuca believes scores of home buyers are at risk because only one in 10 meth labs are busted. Other times, he said, information can fall through the cracks by the time a big bank or government agency gets past the red tape of selling a foreclosed home.

He advised anyone considering buying a foreclosure to do their due diligence. He suggested the following actions:

• Check the DEA's National Clandestine Laboratory Register.Talk to the property's neighbors.
• Contact the local health department and police for past issues.Buy a kit to test for chemicals.
• Sometimes a great price for a home can hide great non-monetary costs to the family.  The Romans were right...Caveat Emptor (Let the Buyer Beware).