Tenants and owners caught in meth mess

The brouhaha at the Stringham Avenue apartments began in December when a potential buyer of the complex asked for a meth test during an inspection of the units.

Matt Walker, who owns 148 apartment units in Salt Lake and Utah counties, said he regularly tests for meth when buying apartments. The company Walker hired found 10 of the 12 dwellings tainted with meth to varying degrees.

Anthony Cortez, the apartment owner, then paid a different "decontamination specialist" to test the same apartments. His test found only four of 12 units at 545 E. Stringham Ave. were contaminated.

So with thousands of dollars in cleanup costs resting on the two tests — and two entirely different results — both parties went to the Salt Lake Valley Health Department to battle it out and landed in Brian Reid's office.

After discussions, the department concluded six of the apartments needed to be thoroughly cleaned, repainted and recarpeted.

With the property in transition, tenants in six units were booted out a week before Christmas. Cortez, who had owned the buildings for three years, was out $60,000 to $70,000 on the sale price and the $600 per month for a two-bedroom apartment until the sale closed.

Today, he is livid. The situation at his apartment illustrates a messy conundrum for landlords and tenants because of a meth-testing system that is outdated, unreliable and unscientific.

"It's a huge problem, and it's not a problem of methamphetamine on the walls," Cortez said.

How can meth tests be so wildly varied in results?

How can decontamination specialists hold so much power over landlords and tenants?

How can the health department close apartments when there are no established health risks at such low levels of meth?

"The health department really needs to take a look at the issue and clean it up," Cortez said. "There are no checks and balances."

With methamphetamine use rampant in Utah, Cortez says as many as 80 percent of rentals may have meth residue. Meth testing makes it possible for unscrupulous buyers to acquire property for less money, remove all the tenants, get new carpet and paint paid for and then have the ability to negotiate new leases with new tenants.

"You get a clean slate on property," Cortez said. "It's really taking advantage of a law that was written to keep people from living where there have been meth labs.