My rented property was turned into a Cannabis Farm

[LumpyandBumps]

I’ve just posted a reply on another thread about Cannabis Farms and wondered if anyone had any questions.
I rented a substantial semi detached family home to what I thought was a family.
They always paid rent on time, gave access to engineers for statutory checks, and never asked for repairs.
After nearly 2 years they abruptly stopped paying rent. I couldn’t get hold of them and a visit to the property gave me the information from a neighbour that the house had been raided as a Cannabis Farm.

@LumpyandBumpsif they had set it up properly then we would not have known.
but it absolutely stank!
when it was raided, it had one guy in there in a single bed, guarding it.

This happened to a friend, after the prosecution the police asked him to collect all the hydroponic equipment as is was “his” selling it paid for most the repairs

Possibly. The passport was in English, but showed China as place of birth.
Some fake passports fool people specially trained to spot issues, so an ordinary landlord doesn’t really stand much chance against a professional forger I suppose.

We had a power cut at 2am one morning, and when I got up a couple of hours later our village (which is one road) was full of power company vans and police.
A semidetached house over the road had been turned into a grow house. They had bypassed the electric supply, it was so dangerous we had no power for hours while the power company made it safe.
Similar to others on here, the previous tenants had been such a nuisance, that no-one including the direct neighbours, thought anything was amiss. We were all just so pleased that quiet tenants had moved in. The couple in the other half of the semi are elderly so were completely bewildered by it all.

I did think it odd that a 3 bed family home had been rented to three men, who we saw only occasionally. But I figured the landlord didn’t care after two successive problem families had rented it.

I know someone else who this happened to, they figured out what was going on and were threatened by the growers to keep quiet until they had completed the grow.

The police never returned items to me, or told me this, but there was a huge amount of growing equipment left behind.
After I realised the ‘lights’ I was throwing downstairs to save constantly walking up and down originally cost £500, and the fertiliser I was giving away cost £90-£150 per bottle I did manage to recover quite a lot of my costs.
It’s not illegal to sell any of the equipment. We sold most of it via EBay

Interesting! A Chinese family bought the house behind my old house and turned it into a cannabis farm. Perhaps they were Vietnamese!

We can joke about it now, and whether if we had found out earlier we would have just increased the rent to cover damages, etc, but I know that we would have called in the authorities.
It was bad, but the majority of damage had been done early on and it would have been even worse to only have got a few months for all of the damages.

this happened to us, the terrace next to us had a farm in then when covid hit, they obviously decided that too many people would be around and scarpered. We couldnt smell a thing but the guy on the other side had an air brick going into his toddler daughter's bedroom and had been on at the police for months trying to get them to take an interest because of the reek of it.

They absolutely trashed the place, the owner lived miles away and so had entrusted it to an estate agent whom we believe knew all about it and were in cahoots. The police rocked up about two weeks after they had left and we heard their inspector going off like a rocket at the incompetent plod who hadn't noticed £70k worth of cannabis being farmed on their doorstep. Still, I expect they had been too busy busting up a Quaker meeting or arresting some annoying school parents who'd complained.

Did you learn how the police found out?

But not enforceable, Tennant can refuse based on the right to quiet enjoyment.

No, we had no communication with the police. Much later one of the neighbour’s ( non attached side) teenage children said she had reported it to the police many months before, but they took no action. She thought it was because she was only about 16 at the time.
I did wonder if they used a thermal imaging camera though, as there were open fields behind the house, so it might have stood out like a sore thumb.
All of the neighbours were astounded at all of the equipment that was brought out though. None of them had seen anything go in.

It’s true that it’s not enforceable.
It is now something which is raised as a specific part of our tenant screening process. We explain that there will be regular inspections, and and why, and that we’re not looking to see if the hoovering or washing up has been done, etc. Everyone so far has been very accommodating. Of course one could start to refuse if they wish, but it’s not happened yet.
In practice it’s the first inspection which is the vital one. People don’t rent to set up a Cannabis Farm in several months time. It happens straight away.

Just to warn you. They can agree to all of this at the time. And still say no on the day.

This thread is exactly why it annoys me when people are ‘relaxed’ about weed-smoking.

Damage to property
Trafficked people working in grow houses and treated horribly
Power stolen from the grid
Electrical hazards and fires due to excess power use

It’s not a victimless crime.

Our next door neighbour rented their house out to a normal looking British family with a young child and they set up a cannabis farm. The place absolutely stank of weed the whole time they were there, to the point where we had to keep our windows closed in the summer.
They were definitely living there as a family and we assumed they were just really heavy users, they would smoke a lot in the garden, but then the police raided the house. They left an absolute mess, holes drilled through walls for water pipes etc. Neighbour was devastated, they had paid an agency to rent out and look after the property for them.

Yes, I’m aware of this. No one has done it yet though.

My current tenants are all quite long term now, and my plan is to sell if a property becomes vacant, so hopefully I will continue to avoid problems.