Little Green Houses ON FIRE

Copyright David A. Kearns

Kearnspalmbay@Netzero.net

While creating the blog and posting bits and pieces of my proposal to it, police and firemen were busy scratching their heads at a house fire on Seabold Road in the southwest corner of my fair city. This all took place Friday morning in the pre-dawn hours. By 8 a.m. as I worked, the southeast corner of the home was engulfed.

The house is a loss now as is most of the marijuana crop that firemen and cops found smoldering inside. The front of the house had been “dead-bolted” according to the cops, so when the fire started the fireman had trouble getting in, delaying them, adding to the total damage. Police told local news the fire started in the attic space in some jury-rigged electrical wiring. Owners, or renters, had overloaded the system to account for the extensive lighting. The home also had hurricane plywood over the front windows and the garage door.

If fire fighters have trouble getting into the place when fire starts, and the electric system had been tampered with in a way making it more prone to fire, the cops rule it arson, which is where this ruling sits now.They do that because the city of Palm Bay suffered massive fires covering nearly all the lower half of the city in the spring of 2008. Imagine the New Jersey Pine Barrens with little streets, sparsely dotted with 3/2 ranches, each on a quarter acre; no hydrants for miles. Throw in some kudzu, palmetto for tinder. Yeah, like that.

Technically this is one of my neighbors. Yet, I don’t think the owner bought the house for its central location. A search of the tax rolls shows that she bought both the lot the house sits on, and an adjacent lot facing the street behind her less than two years ago. I drove by the house to get snaps and noticed another house on the street has hurricane shutters on it recently purchased as well. The appraiser’s office website shows that this latter house is owned by an out-of-state couple. Grow houses can mimic investment properties and the reverse. The chain of events leading to ownership can be very confusing. But a check of property ownership can give investigators some hints as to where the grow houses may be found. Often, those buying a grow house will have paid above top dollar for a quick sale. They have selected the house more for its anti-location with respect to typical real estate deals. Quiet, secluded, yet with quick access to Interstate 95.A red flag might be a house owned less than one year where the previous owner paid $120,000, and the new owner paid $220,000, especially if that home was bought after the mortgage crisis already began and property values were on the decline; especially if that house and the surrounding street is valued at below $100,000.

The great part about my city from the grower’s perspective is the pine-shaded anonymity it still affords. People come and go, cars come and go. Who is the owner, who is the renter? Jittery neighbors who just want to quietly go about their business, and miles and miles of streets laid down by General Development Corporation back in the 1970s. It’s a jigsaw puzzle of streets, trees, and watery canals laced throughout. Perfect for the grow.