Has anybody had experience dealing with illegal drug labs or stumbling across any while working? I've had several run ins with labs over the years and this is some of the things I've learned from law enforcement and going to meetings and what an ex drug addict has said along with some addicts that I've known over the years.
The drug we have the largest problem with around here is meth and its getting worse, I have had a meth lab literallly yards from a house I lived at years ago that we stumbled across while deer hunting one fall, it was just shortly ago abandoned when we came across it in the woods along a stream and I was asked to look at a septic system one time and when I got there I discovered it was a meth house and nobody knew I was coming and luckily I did manage to get out without incident. There was a major drug drop on a farm I rented years back and we had plenty of vandalism problems until I was told by autorities what was going on and that they knew about it and were monitoring the situation. The real eye opener came when a vehicle went into the ditch not far from our house and we later learned after one of the occupants came to our door that the van was loaded with drugs, guns, enough to start ww3 mostly automatic weapons, booze and hand guns all loaded and ready for action, the authorities came upon it and subdued them while they slept off the hangover and came down from a drug high. Again we were lucky nothing happened and nobody was hurt.
This stuff is lethal from what I discovered and toxic and cancer causing after seeing the septic system bubbling in the dead of winter and greenish vapors coming from the septic lid and all the snow melted off the entire system I've since quit working on private septic systems unless I know the individuals who live in the house and are positive its never been a meth house.
We've burned and dozed under meth manufacturing vacated buildings and after I discovered how lethal this stuff is and dangerous and once its inside the buildings it never really leaves and buring only emits it into the air for the one buring it to breath in we quit doing that, basically we quit demolishion of those buildings as well, I don't want the liability associated with it either.
We have a greater situational awareness of our surroundings when out working, especially in secluded areas, we have gone to more of a proactive approach to staying safe and avoiding incidence with any of the makers or distributors, we have numbers such as county dispatch on speed dial on our phones, the owner always shows us the work to be done, if we are concerned we request the owner be present at the time of the work, we ask questions as to who has access and who needs to be there and why, we quit making initial contact with someone coming into our work area, we wait for them to come to us and are aware of what type of person we are dealing with, if alone we have cell phone in hand at all times when strangers approach, if not we have a pattern where nobody stands too close, we make them look around to keep an eye on all of us and note if they do monitor all of our movements while talking to us. We notice who's watching us work and where they are located and try to figure out if its out of curiosity or just to monitor us and have liscense plate numbers written down, we do scans of our surroundings beforehand to see whats over the hill or around the bend by the river before work or equipment shows up. I've contacted police ahead of time to find out if we are working in an area of suspicion or a high traffic area or the area is monitored, we ask who the neighbors are and who lives in nearby houses that we may be close to or who rents buildings nearby and what they do in them if known. Most landowners are older and have no clue whats going on and have little concern so we try to keep it simple and casual in the conversation to not alarm them or raise suspicion to our questons, having the owner there really helps because they are supposed to be around and then those watching know who has us there and they check with the owner and leave us alone, thats happened more times than I can recall and the owner never knew why he was being asked he just thought it was a casual conversation amoung neighbors or thier workers or family or whatever.
Most times we are just monitored as to what we are doing and kept an eye on, however several times we have been approached and questioned, which is very dangerous, because your too close to something you don't know about or where its at or where they want to keep you away from.
Law enforcement has told me there are boobie traps and automatic weapons wired to trip wires surrounding meth labs and I've seen several remains of trip wires left behind, its very serious and unless you know what to look for you could easily be killed accidentally just going around behind a tree to relieve yourself. We never wander from the work site after dark or before sunup, ever. We are cautious about abandoned buildings and ask the owner whats inside and when he was last there and for what and if he cares if we do a scan of the area, we try to make it look innocent and if its close to where we work ask if we can park our trucks there or things like that so we can check them out and make sure theres nothing in or around them to cause us harm or any reason why someone would harm us for looking or being there.
If you haven't gone to meeting explaining what meth and other drugs do to the body and how it effects the mind you need to know what kind of people your dealing with and how they think and how a high effects them and how they react to noise and vibrations and hillucations and things like that its really scarry and puts you on alert, your not dealing with anything you've ever imagined and you need to be aware for your safety and your workers safety, its not like you get a second chance to do better the next time.
I've come close a time or two when confronted I never knew just how close until afterwards when an ex addict I know told me it was he who kept me safe and put in a good word to not harm me or my crew becuse he knew me and knew I was no risk to them, it shook me to the core, he was honest and upfront and at the time was still using and came to warn me later how close and how to avoid it from happening again, he showed me the automatic weapon that was aimed at me through the door of the pickup that apprached me and the handgun the rider had in his coat ready to pull and shoot. It was a friendly reminder just how serious of trouble I was in and never really knew it at the time, I was too close to a major lab and made the operator twitchy, where it was I'll never know, we saw nothing and there were no buildings anywhere near us at the time but there was a river not far away.
If you work in the woods or do tree clearing you need to walk the area and look cautiously at the trees and surroudings for anything left behind before working or else you'll shove it up into a pile and light it up or not knowing whats inside that's explosive, or worse yet boobie traps left behind aimed to cause harm. I've found several one was a pipe bomb that I turned over to the authorities out of an abandoned building we were about to destroy and burn, actually I called the police and they removed it and told me what it was, I had no idea other than it wasn't right to be there. Sorry for the long post but I'd like to know if any others are having problems or were aware of whats going on around them, most contractors I talk to don't have a clue and are totally unaware.
I guess I've been lucky and if others hadn't told me and I didn't sit through meetings on this and talk to those that should know like the authorities I'd have just passed most of it off as different and never known what was really going on. If not for the meth addict who told me in no certain terms what was happening and how close I came I'd have not known until I heard shots or been shot and then wonder why and my family and crew would have wondered why such a senseless thing happened and left more questions than answers for doing nothing but operate a dozer pushing dirt in the middle of nowhere on private land??
The drug we have the largest problem with around here is meth and its getting worse, I have had a meth lab literallly yards from a house I lived at years ago that we stumbled across while deer hunting one fall, it was just shortly ago abandoned when we came across it in the woods along a stream and I was asked to look at a septic system one time and when I got there I discovered it was a meth house and nobody knew I was coming and luckily I did manage to get out without incident. There was a major drug drop on a farm I rented years back and we had plenty of vandalism problems until I was told by autorities what was going on and that they knew about it and were monitoring the situation. The real eye opener came when a vehicle went into the ditch not far from our house and we later learned after one of the occupants came to our door that the van was loaded with drugs, guns, enough to start ww3 mostly automatic weapons, booze and hand guns all loaded and ready for action, the authorities came upon it and subdued them while they slept off the hangover and came down from a drug high. Again we were lucky nothing happened and nobody was hurt.
This stuff is lethal from what I discovered and toxic and cancer causing after seeing the septic system bubbling in the dead of winter and greenish vapors coming from the septic lid and all the snow melted off the entire system I've since quit working on private septic systems unless I know the individuals who live in the house and are positive its never been a meth house.
We've burned and dozed under meth manufacturing vacated buildings and after I discovered how lethal this stuff is and dangerous and once its inside the buildings it never really leaves and buring only emits it into the air for the one buring it to breath in we quit doing that, basically we quit demolishion of those buildings as well, I don't want the liability associated with it either.
We have a greater situational awareness of our surroundings when out working, especially in secluded areas, we have gone to more of a proactive approach to staying safe and avoiding incidence with any of the makers or distributors, we have numbers such as county dispatch on speed dial on our phones, the owner always shows us the work to be done, if we are concerned we request the owner be present at the time of the work, we ask questions as to who has access and who needs to be there and why, we quit making initial contact with someone coming into our work area, we wait for them to come to us and are aware of what type of person we are dealing with, if alone we have cell phone in hand at all times when strangers approach, if not we have a pattern where nobody stands too close, we make them look around to keep an eye on all of us and note if they do monitor all of our movements while talking to us. We notice who's watching us work and where they are located and try to figure out if its out of curiosity or just to monitor us and have liscense plate numbers written down, we do scans of our surroundings beforehand to see whats over the hill or around the bend by the river before work or equipment shows up. I've contacted police ahead of time to find out if we are working in an area of suspicion or a high traffic area or the area is monitored, we ask who the neighbors are and who lives in nearby houses that we may be close to or who rents buildings nearby and what they do in them if known. Most landowners are older and have no clue whats going on and have little concern so we try to keep it simple and casual in the conversation to not alarm them or raise suspicion to our questons, having the owner there really helps because they are supposed to be around and then those watching know who has us there and they check with the owner and leave us alone, thats happened more times than I can recall and the owner never knew why he was being asked he just thought it was a casual conversation amoung neighbors or thier workers or family or whatever.
Most times we are just monitored as to what we are doing and kept an eye on, however several times we have been approached and questioned, which is very dangerous, because your too close to something you don't know about or where its at or where they want to keep you away from.
Law enforcement has told me there are boobie traps and automatic weapons wired to trip wires surrounding meth labs and I've seen several remains of trip wires left behind, its very serious and unless you know what to look for you could easily be killed accidentally just going around behind a tree to relieve yourself. We never wander from the work site after dark or before sunup, ever. We are cautious about abandoned buildings and ask the owner whats inside and when he was last there and for what and if he cares if we do a scan of the area, we try to make it look innocent and if its close to where we work ask if we can park our trucks there or things like that so we can check them out and make sure theres nothing in or around them to cause us harm or any reason why someone would harm us for looking or being there.
If you haven't gone to meeting explaining what meth and other drugs do to the body and how it effects the mind you need to know what kind of people your dealing with and how they think and how a high effects them and how they react to noise and vibrations and hillucations and things like that its really scarry and puts you on alert, your not dealing with anything you've ever imagined and you need to be aware for your safety and your workers safety, its not like you get a second chance to do better the next time.
I've come close a time or two when confronted I never knew just how close until afterwards when an ex addict I know told me it was he who kept me safe and put in a good word to not harm me or my crew becuse he knew me and knew I was no risk to them, it shook me to the core, he was honest and upfront and at the time was still using and came to warn me later how close and how to avoid it from happening again, he showed me the automatic weapon that was aimed at me through the door of the pickup that apprached me and the handgun the rider had in his coat ready to pull and shoot. It was a friendly reminder just how serious of trouble I was in and never really knew it at the time, I was too close to a major lab and made the operator twitchy, where it was I'll never know, we saw nothing and there were no buildings anywhere near us at the time but there was a river not far away.
If you work in the woods or do tree clearing you need to walk the area and look cautiously at the trees and surroudings for anything left behind before working or else you'll shove it up into a pile and light it up or not knowing whats inside that's explosive, or worse yet boobie traps left behind aimed to cause harm. I've found several one was a pipe bomb that I turned over to the authorities out of an abandoned building we were about to destroy and burn, actually I called the police and they removed it and told me what it was, I had no idea other than it wasn't right to be there. Sorry for the long post but I'd like to know if any others are having problems or were aware of whats going on around them, most contractors I talk to don't have a clue and are totally unaware.
I guess I've been lucky and if others hadn't told me and I didn't sit through meetings on this and talk to those that should know like the authorities I'd have just passed most of it off as different and never known what was really going on. If not for the meth addict who told me in no certain terms what was happening and how close I came I'd have not known until I heard shots or been shot and then wonder why and my family and crew would have wondered why such a senseless thing happened and left more questions than answers for doing nothing but operate a dozer pushing dirt in the middle of nowhere on private land??