The meth lab down the street burned down...

[Catshrink]

That was a lot of drama for early Saturday evening. Many of us in the neighborhood suspected there was a meth lab there and at least two people had reported it. One neighbor heard 4 loud pops.

The police initially told us to get ready to evacuate, just in case. It was a raging fire coupled with a high wind. The kicker is that we have no fire hydrants in the neighborhood! Most of us had never given it any thought. But -- no fire hydrants! The first tanker that arrived used all its water hosing down the house next to the one on fire because the one on fire had no hope of surviving. Two other fire trucks arrived -- but there was no water so they stood around until more tankers arrived. Unbelievable!

No lives were lost, the neighborhood reeks of smoke, but we're all okay.

[KingFlorez]

1. That's scary

It's good no one was hurt.

[Jara sang]

2. What will the freepers do for sustenance now?

[mike_c]

3. neighborhood pressure and some local police involvment...

...has cleared out two nests of tweakers on my street, one of which had been there for several years (not a cooker though, but the other one apparently was). Both were pretty sad stories, presumably pursuing their slow motion train wrecks elsewhere now.

[Warpy]

7. This neighborhood got cleaned out 10 years ago when I first

bought here. Neighbors would get together, bang pots and pans together outside tweaker houses, write down license plate numbers, harass clients, and generally annoy the shit out of anyone in that house until they moved, something they always did quckly.

Did I mention I love my neighbors?

It was a courageous thing to do, given the paranoid nature and amassed arsenal of the average gang of speed freaks.

My area is now considered incredibly hostile to them and they've moved out into the "good" parts of town, often renting motel rooms to do their cooking, or even moving to trailers outside town and then selling in town.

[postulater]

17. Tweaker? What's a tweaker?

And why is a tweaker called that?

[lies and propaganda]

19. people who do meth...

Tweak, i suppose cause its so fucking gross and they just tweak. Its almost indescribable, its just repulsive.

[bahrbearian]

4. A Pick -Pocket took my pursue

[expatriot]

5. Well, at least now you can catch up on your sleep...

...you've been tweaking for weeks.

[Catshrink]

6. HUH?

Did I miss something?

[freesqueeze]

8. Glad you're OK

Meth is death. It has destroyed too many.

Meth lab...no fire hydrants...what kind of neighborhood is this?

[Catshrink]

10. The only kind a school teacher just starting out can afford to live in...

without going broke. No way can I afford $200k, even $150k or more for a home. Most of my neighbors are retired people, some are snowbirds, some are like me -- have good jobs that we are committed to but don't earn much doing.

Housing prices are out of control here in the Phoenix area -- and I know they are worse elsewhere.

[sandnsea]

9. I got one out of our neighborhood

Just let the police chief and mayor know that I knew, and if I knew and somebody ended up hurt because they didn't get rid of them - BIG law suit and I would be sure and testify that the cops and city had been warned. Tweakers were gone within 2 weeks and we've never had any more drug problems in this neighborhood at all.

Neighbors really can make a difference in stuff like this.

Glad you guys are all okay. We've had a few houses go up in my teeny town too, although not in quite a while. Here, it's most annoying and sad than truly scary though.

[Jane Austin]

11. Good on you!

Just curious - - how do you tell if a house is a meth place?

[Catshrink]

12. By the traffic around the house

a lot of activity that is unusual for the neighborhood -- late night activity. This is what I noticed.

[Ian David]

16. Cops once watched a meth lab being dismantled and moved under their noses

They were too busy obsessing over the underground bondage and sadomasochism club next door to the meth lab that they had just raided (after it had been operating two days a week for a year directly across the street from the police station).

The bondage club bust was thrown-out because they never bothered with things like "warrants" or "probable cause" or "due process" or "not lying under oath."

The meth lab?

Who knows?

The tweekers laughed for a year while the local media (and cops) obsessed over the naughty sex club they were so concerned about.

[sandnsea]

13. Uhm,

First, in a small town you already know who the tweakers are. When you start seeing them walk up and down your street, that's your first clue. When you see various people at a particular house at odd hours, that's your second clue. When your vehicles start getting rifled through and stuff starts disappearing out of your yard, that's gettin' mad time. And when the odors start wafting through your neighborhood, oh hell no.

I'm not a person that makes rash judgments against people, despite the fact that I'm very "opinionated".

[BlooInBloo]

14. Maybe it's a brothel.

(snicker)

[sandnsea]

15. With no women??

Well, I suppose. hehe.

[Jane Austin]

22. Thanks.

What is the distinctive smell like?

[sandnsea]

24. sweet ammonia, sort of

To my nose, it went from a sort of charred smell to a sweet ammonia smell. It's been a while since I've smelled it, since they're gone now. But you'll know it if you smell it because it's something you've never smelled before.

[Jane Austin]

25. Interesting - - thanks.

n/t

[spag68]

18. meth lab

this can't be true, I heard that stuff is coming in at the border from mexico

[Asgaya Dihi]

21. It comes from both

We used to way back when have some problems with speed, the problems were real enough but we handled it badly by trying to make it go away instead of just regulating it better. Things that people want don't just go away, prohibition the first time should have shown us that much and 30+ years of failure and damage this time should have again.

What happens is we make it illegal so meth labs pop up, they've always been around they are just going through a surge of popularity and press attention. They are dangerous, highly, toxic fumes, chemicals and risk of explosions are a real concern. So we shut those down to make things "safe" for our kids and what happens is that the Mexican gangs just move in with imported meth. This stuff removed the danger of the local lab and replaced it with something that's even more pure and dangerous than the stuff the lab made in the first place and distributed by people who aren't afraid to use violence.

We've again and again and again traded a problem for a bigger one, then a bigger one again, in an effort to accomplish what we could have done in the first place with sensible regulation and education. We aren't involved in a war on drugs as such, it's a war against the laws of supply and demand and it's not a fight that can be won. You have to deal with demand, and that means regulation to protect kids and education to reduce demand, not prison. We've been on the wrong track from the start.

[Skidmore]

20. In our little village of 204 souls, a lab was cleared out last summer.

It was an eye opener for the largely elderly folks who live here. These people were selling to the larger nearby urban centers.

[Catshrink]

23. Update:

The house is gutted -- there is nothing left but bits of framing. The neighbors escaped with no damage to their homes -- a lot of smoke, but they are still standing. With the winds we had last night, that is amazing. The firemen hosed down the palms -- there's always a risk that if they catch fire in the wind, the fronds will break away and fly off to land on a roof. In short, it could have been much worse. I feel badly for the elderly lady who owned the home. She noticed smoke coming out of the vents and went outside to take a look only to see part of her house in flames. She grabbed the dog and left barefoot.

The suspicious activity was due to a couple she'd rented out part of the house to. They are no where to be found. Poor lady.