Editorial: Pennsylvania should require meth house disclosure

Methamphetamines can kill.

The illegal drugs themselves can be lethal, but it doesn’t stop there. The labs are dangerous when they are operating. They give off gases. They can explode. They are a tinderbox that has to be handled like a time bomb, but people manufacturing illicit drugs aren’t notoriously careful.

The labs continue to be dangerous afterward. The manufacturing process is a ghost that haunts the property, causing health problems as simple as skin irritations or headaches or as life threatening, long-term cancer. This isn’t surprising, as meth labs make use of poisonous chemicals like pesticides and nail polish remover to mix up their product.

So are you sure that your house wasn’t a former meth lab? If you live in Pennsylvania, don’t be so sure.

A Spotlight PA story revealed the holes in the state’s requirements about disclosing meth activity when selling property — namely that there aren’t any. Landlords don’t have to tell their tenants that the apartment they are moving into was used to make illegal drugs.

That is a significant problem. It is all the worse when there is a housing crisis driving up sale and lease prices. It’s bad enough to live in a toxic drug den. It’s even worse when the state doesn’t require you be told about it. The absolute worst? Paying top dollar for the privilege.

The state needs to address this by protecting everyone concerned.

Requiring that a meth lab property be identified when it is being sold or rented helps the tenant or homeowner by keeping them from living unaware in a house that could make them sick.

At the same time, requiring a seller or landlord to make that disclosure can prevent them from losing a sale if the information is uncovered in another way. It can stop real estate agents from investing time and effort in a dangerous property.

And more than anything, it can encourage the appropriate and safe remediation of properties so that they are actually safe instead of just camera ready. This benefits the community at large by removing toxic material from the environment.

There is no reason this shouldn’t be done. There’s no reason it shouldn’t have been law already. Sellers are required to disclose “material defects.” Problems with things like termites or basement flooding or a leaky roof need to be revealed. Legal problems with the deed need to be noted.

A house that could cause cancer should definitely meet the level of mandatory disclosure.