SNOHOMISH — For Sale: Charming 7-acre property, site of former methamphetamine lab. Features contamination from toxic chemicals, fire damage from lab explosion and hundreds of pounds of garbage.
Underneath it all — the blackened workshop, mounds of trash and the $26,000 cleanup cost — Ross Wigney saw potential.
He knew he’d found the perfect home for his family and business.
"The first time I walked in here, it was spooky. It was a black mess," wife Wendy Wigney said. "But he said, ‘Honey, if you could just see this through my eyes,’ and I trusted his vision."
The Snohomish-area property was one of dozens of methamphetamine labs in the county shut down by the Snohomish Drug Task Force in 2002.
Last year, the Snohomish County Drug Task Force responded to more than 100 meth labs and dumpsites, up from 73 in 2002, police said. Undoing the damage to the Wigneys’ property put their commercial drug-lab cleaning business to the test and brought the couple’s fight against the highly addictive drug to their front door once again.
"We’ve experienced the meth horror from the inside out," Ross Wigney said, adding that his eldest daughter, now 23, is in her fifth year of addiction to meth. "We know the destruction it causes, and we want to make a difference."
Three years ago, he became a state-certified drug lab cleanup contractor, work that often brings him into contact with the hazardous chemicals and toxic residues dumped by meth cooks.
The Wigneys’ company, Ausclean Technologies, gets roughly 30 percent of its business from cleaning up former drug labs.
Ross Wigney first visited the Snohomish-area site in August 2002 when his company was asked to submit a bid for decontaminating it. He later learned it was for sale and asked to buy it "as is."
The site included a three-bedroom, 1,800-square foot single-story home, tucked back off a rural road. The house and the two-story workshop, which housed the meth lab until an explosion tore through the top, are surrounded by trees, an area the Wigneys describe as quiet and peaceful.
No one was hurt in the explosion, but the fire blackened the top floor of the workshop, damaging the roof .
"If you weren’t a contractor, you’d be crazy to buy a place like that," Ross Wigney said. "It was in a total state of neglect. We couldn’t even walk the property."
After a fight to get financing, the Wigneys purchased the property for $160,000 in December 2002. Without a meth lab, the rural home could have fetched $250,000.
Six weeks of intensive cleaning followed, under the supervision of the Snohomish Health District.
They hoped to complete the cleanup in five weeks, so they could move in by Christmas.
Ross Wigney and employees from his drug-cleanup company pulled out heaps of garbage, filling five 25-foot-deep containers with rotting food and fetid waste. The previous owners had no garbage removal service and apparently just threw trash out the back door.
"The smell was overpowering," Ross Wigney said.
The team then removed the burned wood and floor of the workshop and tore out the drywall.
Inside the house, where meth was used but not cooked, they pulled out the carpets. Using a pressure washer, they cleaned the house and the workshop.
The first test of the house showed that the bathroom and back door still were contaminated.
They tried again. Working almost around the clock as Christmas neared, they pressure- washed the house a second time.
After six weeks, they paid for a retest, which showed the house met state standards.
On Dec. 21, 2002, they frantically started carpeting the house and painting. In four days, they finished the work and started their move.
"We were half in and half out on Christmas Eve," Wendy Wigney said. "It was great, though. We were happy we weren’t in limbo anymore."
But the problems didn’t stop there. The Wigneys sank about $80,000 into restoring the property and transforming the workshop into their business — much more money than they expected.
Plus, "when you live in a meth house, the tweekers still think it’s a meth house and come around all the time," Ross Wigney said.
The visits continued for months, leaving Wendy Wigney concerned about being there alone. Ross Wigney said he finally got so frustrated, he chased a car off the property and hasn’t had problems since.
The Wigneys, who moved here from Snoqualmie, said they love living in Snohomish County and hope their experience will help others understand the danger of meth.
The couple often give methamphetamine awareness presentations, teaching community groups the basics about the drug, including its effects and how to spot a meth lab.
At the Snohomish County Youth Meth Summit earlier this month they demonstrated what’s involved in cleaning up a lab. The education effort is aimed at keeping people from using the drug.
"If we never had to clean up another meth lab, that would be just fine," Ross Wigney said. "We wish there were no more of them left to clean."
The Wigneys say they never doubted their ability to rescue the property, and are considering buying more meth lab sites.
Neither worries about living in a place meth nearly destroyed. A ping-pong table now sits in the corner of the workshop where meth was once cooked.
"The transformation was like a miracle," Wendy Wigney said. "(Ross) cleans like 100 Martha Stewarts."
Reporter Katherine Schiffner: 425-339-3436 or schiffner@heraldnet.com.
Ross and Wendy Wigney will speak about the danger of methamphetamines at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Snohomish Library, 311 Maple Ave.
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