Although most tenants rent homes for the purposes of having somewhere to live, an increasing number of criminal gangs are renting properties for the express purpose of turning them into hothouse cannabis farms. Landlords and neighbours are usually blissfully unaware of what is happening inside the property, and while the rest of the street is going about their daily business, the criminals could have as many as three hundred cannabis plants thriving under sophisticated watering and light systems with one or two illegal immigrants living in the properties to tend the crop.
Rental properties used for growing cannabis often fly under the police radar, although I did read in the papers a while back that police have had some success spotting illegal cannabis farms using heat surveillance technology installed in helicopters—cannabis farms stick out like a sore thumb thanks to the huge amounts of heat generated by the specialist lighting systems.
In one recent case, a landlord was alerted to a suspicious humming noise emanating from one of his properties and when he called round to see what was causing it, he discovered more than three hundred cannabis plants thriving amidst some expensive growing equipment. The young man in residence was subsequently arrested and jailed for two years, although he claimed he had been forced into the scheme in order to work off a debt to a criminal gang.
So the moral of this story is keep a close eye on your tenants and their activities! Check up on them regularly and if neighbours start making complaints about strange noises, investigate immediately.
