The many apartments in which they lived were always a mess. Dirty dishes and clothes were scattered everywhere. The beds didn't have sheets. There wasn't any food or toilet paper.

She described it as "pure neglect."

"It was a free-for-all. Everyone out for themselves."

The woman said she latched on to friends who had food. She would eat and stay at their houses, sometimes for weeks without her mother noticing. "She was incredibly selfish or she just didn't care."

Worse, the woman said, she was sexually abused by a man who told her mother he liked children. The mother told him he could get in bed with her then 7-year-old daughter.

"I don't understand how she didn't feel bad. I don't understand that."

The daughter, who dabbled in drugs, including meth, herself, somehow made it out of that environment and now works as an attorney. She said foster care saved her life.

While foster care removes children from a horrendous environment, it isn't an ideal solution. Children from meth-addicted parents pose added difficulties for the child welfare system.

"There is a different level of disorganization in a meth house compared to other drug houses," said Mary Wilder, state DCFS community services manager. "The children are much more disorganized, more difficult to manage."

Children who come from homes where chaos reigns have trouble abiding by rules and routines in a structured home.

"It's hard for shelter parents and foster parents to stick with these kids because they're so much work," Wilder said.

Some have asked to not have them placed in their homes, and some adoptive parents have even revoked their adoptions, she said.

A Salt Lake County foster and shelter family treats children from meth houses differently from day one. The children leave their bags outside and are immediately given a bath. All of their belongings are washed in bleach.

The foster parents see behavioral differences in the children as well.

"They're eager to please because they don't know whether they're going to get Jekyll or Hyde. They're extremely hard to discipline," said Michelle, 31, a foster mom to four children from meth homes.

The foster mother also noticed the children, ages 6, 4, 3 and 2, hoard food. "I have to feed them five times a day just to get them (caught) up nutritionally," she said.

Furthermore, Michelle said, the two older siblings are "parentified," meaning they take on roles well beyond their years. They look out for the younger ones, insisting they be fed first and giving them food from their own plates.

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