Are you growing safely?

[cocoJoe]

Hi Everyone,
I want you to take a good look at what you are doing. If you are growing outside the laws of your state you are in great danger. You are only as safe as your weakest link. I thought I was safe and secure. I was not.
What are weakest links?
Friends
Family
Odors
So on and so forth!
Please stay safe, even if it is only herb. Look one more time!
I luv ya

[Weed420]

If you're going to grow outdoors make sure you're legal and you have a secure yard to grow in. Alot of thugs out there looking to capatalize on your hard work.

[DVSmofo]

^too damn true. everyone wants the easy road. thats why i have a mean ass dog in my backyard all the time. he will let anyone in the yard, but he wont let anyone out. not with all their body parts at least

[Screwnuts33]

#1 rule of "Grow Club" is no one talks about "Grow Club". Tell no one. Not your most trusted friend, sibling, family, etc. No leaks of information. Pay attention when you go to the grow shop. Don't use a vehicle that is registered to the address you grow at. Law enforcement may not be the only people watching the store. Rippers may be watching for someone to come out with a large order of supplies and either follow you or take your tag # and do a DMV search for your info. Do not leave the shop and go directly to your grow site. Make it hard for someone to follow you. Make extra stops, double back, etc. Pay attention to your surroundings. If you see a vehicle behind you and you think they are tailing you hit a fast food drive thru. If they follow you thru or are waiting on the other side you will know. Try to spread out your supplies over several stores. Small sales may go unnoticed while filling a large truck may raise some eyebrows. Even the mundane supplies from Home Depot/Lowe's. Pay cash whenevwer possible.

We have all seen plenty of episodes or COPS, DEA, etc and know how they operate regarding flipping suspects. Be smart and don't get sloppy.

[DVSmofo]

i just stay within my limits and dont worry about the police. as far as thieves go....my mossy and big boxer take care of that.

[Kingdiamond]

Live in michigan was growing in a secure steel door shed until a recent rash of LEO raiding outdoor grows i then moved all of my 12 black queen plants into a new growbox in my basement and im currently working on a vent system to pull cold air in and evacuate the smell out .

[JJ Bones]

Loose lips sink ships. Period.

[hippylee]

Originally Posted by JJ Bones

Loose lips sink ships. Period.

I`m procrastinating on some work... feel like writing, so this will probably be a long post... the story of my grow room and the various security issues that arose along the way...

In June, my 18-yr-old son, J, and I built a grow room at the back of our house. We told all his friends (who were continually stopping by and offering to help put up the wall) that it was going to be a storage room for my work files - that there was a new law that they had to be stored in a locked room. Everyone bought the explanation - including my 9-yr-old son, B.

When the room was finished, it was awesome! Perfect temp, humidity, lighting, air flow... but I couldn`t afford a carbon filter at that point, so we vented the room into a large bush at the back of the house. I brought in a half-dozen plants in flower I`d been keeping at a friend`s place, and then a few weeks later, another friend gave me another half-dozen or so plants in early veg (which I discovered a few days too late were infected with spider mites). The hard part was that J`s friends were constantly dropping by, often walking into the house without knocking (as they had always done in the past), and when one is hauling spider-mite-infected plants out of the back porch, through the kitchen, to the bathtub to spray and hose down, this was a big problem! Not to mention the difficulty doing this kind of thing with a 9-year-old around (I had to wait until he was asleep - which made for a lot of realllly late nights). Eventually, we decided to tell J`s best friend (the most trustworthy of the bunch) simply because we needed someone to keep the other friends away when we were working on the plants.

One summer night, B (the 9-yr-old) had gone to a friend`s house in the next town for a sleep-over. Perfect opportunity to flush the plants, spray for mites, etc... It was around midnight and I had plants in the sink, plants on the counter draining into salad bowls, others in the bathtub, etc. I was in the grow-room mopping the floor, when there was a loud knock at the front door. I froze thinking it was probably one of J`s friends and if I didn`t answer, he would just leave. Then another knock... followed by B`s voice - "Anyone home?!?!" OMG... panic... I yelled, "Just a minute...!" and started grabbing plants, practically throwing them into the back porch, "Just a sec, B...!" when suddenly, there he was... my 9-yr-old climbing in through the unlocked living room window -- I was caught red-handed! Fortunately, there was only 2 plants left... but he walked right over to them and said with a look of incredulity, "Are those marijuana plants?!!!" I said J had got them as a present from one of his friends and I was trying to decide what to do with them (god, I hate lying!) and added that we`d be in big trouble if anyone knew we had them, so he`d need to keep it a secret. This was sometime in July.

A couple of weeks later, we were away camping for a few days at an outdoor rockfest. We'd been there two days when J got a call on his cell from a friend who lives a couple of houses down from us -- he said the smoke alarms (all 3) in our house were going off - really loud - and there were neighbours circling the house discussing whether they should call the fire dept. Holy adrenaline rushes... what to do?!?! Apparently the house didn`t appear to be on fire (phew!) and the HIDs would`ve been off at that point, assuming the timers were working, but visions of our rural volunteer fire dept breaking in and finding my grow room... yikes! Plus, with no carbon filter and several plants in full aromatic flower, the concerned neighbours circling the house were a serious threat. We were about 4 hours drive away from home. What to do?!?

After a few minutes of full-fledged panic, we decided we had to get someone in there to turn off the smoke alarms and make sure everything was okay in the grow room (I was still reeling somewhat from the incident a month earlier in which I`d inadvertently stuck a thumb-tack into my HID wire, causing an explosion of electrical sparks and setting the wall on fire). The friend who knew about it was with us so we couldn`t call him.... weighing up the risks, we decided we`d have to go with the kid who`d called to tell us... a true "stoner"... instigator of the village teen "wake & bake" ritual. We told him how to break into the house, where the key to the "storage room" was located, to make sure no-one was around when he went in, and that it would all become clear when he got there. His response when he called back after determining that everything was okay and disconnecting the smoke detectors was one word: "sweeeeet!" I had stained and varnished all the floors before we left for camping and it was an unusually hot day - we think the combination of heat and varnish fumes probably set off the smoke detectors.

So now, three teens knew about the grow room and a nine-year-old knew there might be a couple of weed plants hidden away somewhere. Yikes. But... it gets worse. Just before we`d made the call to J`s friend from the camping place, unbeknownst to us, a couple of guys we`d met there had gone into my tent to change. J and I had no idea they were there - we thought we were alone. They heard every word of our panicked conversation about the grow room and the smoke alarms. They were cool guys and it probably wouldn`t have been a big deal -- they lived in another part of the province and we`d probably never see them again. Except a few weeks later, J and I each got friend requests from them on FaceBook... they`d made friends at the campground with some of J`s other friends... and well, you know how FB works - f*ck!

I was thinking we might as well just put out a sign -- "Grow Room Here" because it was just a matter of time before word got around. Then came the final straw... I got into a dispute (over the phone) with the father of a real bully of a kid over things his son was doing -- of course I should`ve known better... "like father like son" and all that. This guy went absolutely nuts on the other end of the phone saying he was going to "destroy" me. Since his son had been at the rockfest too and had been chatting with the guys who overheard our conversation, I figured there was a chance they might have told him about the grow room and he would told his psycho dad (who certainly sounded like he had *something* on me).

Around here (rural Canada), all the teens and many of their parents smoke weed, but the cops are not user-friendly in any sense of the word. Last year, J and his friend (both 17 at the time) got busted rolling a joint, at night, in a park-like area, in a small town with no-one around (well, except the cop who busted them). It was like this cop had stepped directly out of "Reefer Madness" -- and he was nasty. I went down to the police station the next day with a lawyer which I think helped avoid criminal charges, but the cop wasn`t going to let them off with nothing so they are now each officially "on file" at the justice dept., with a stern warning that any further weed-related offenses will be prosecuted.

I asked a social worker I know if she could check if anyone had made a call to child protective services about me, and sure enough, someone had called but it was down as not worth investigating (that`s all she knew) -- I figure it had to be the crazy father (he probably told them that my 18-yr-old smokes weed, lol!). However, he probably also called the police, and *they* might be more interested in checking us out (given their reaction to J and his friend rolling a single joint). My big fear was that, in addition to being charged (I`ve never had anything bigger than a speeding ticket before), I`d risk losing custody of B (and no grow room is worth that). So, sadly, a few days later, at the beginning of September, I shut `er down... moved everything out.

It`s been two months now, and I really want to set things back up again. I just have no idea how paranoid is too paranoid, yk? Should I just chill and let some time pass... or am I worrying over nothing? What would you do if you were in my shoes? How long would you wait? Or would you consider it a constant security risk (e.g., the guys from the rockfest who overheard us talking don`t know we shut everything down - we never talk to them or see them but they`re on everyone`s facebook friend list, including the kid with the father who`s out to destroy me & who knows if they talk or what they talk about).

I really don`t expect anyone to have read that long, rambling post, but if you did, lemme know what you think. Peace-out ;-)

Lee

[cocoJoe]

Originally Posted by hippylee

I really don`t expect anyone to have read that long, rambling post, but if you did, lemme know what you think. Peace-out ;-)

Lee

Ok this is what I'm talking about. Stay Safe!

[obxgardener]

Lee - take the safe route.

[BWC BayArea]

Find another location to grow for a while. I'd say that big mouths tell faster than odors. A person has to figure out where the odor is coming from 1st. A big mouth can tell some1 everything they need to know.

[LabRat]

Originally Posted by hippylee

I really don`t expect anyone to have read that long, rambling post, but if you did, lemme know what you think. Peace-out ;-)

Lee

As an author of many a long rambling post myself and a fellow Canuckian living in a rural area I think you're doing the right thing. If your kid ends up in the clutches of child services the hell you've gone through to date would seem like paradise!

I am fortunate in that only myself and my C-law spouse and two trusted friends know what's going on. My spousal unit has a daughter not yet 18 but in a few months she will be. She hardly ever has friends drop by and my closest neighbour lives a klic away.

The only other possible interloper is the gas guy that drops by unannounced to read the meter. I fixed that by phoning the gas company to let them know I got a new dog that would not be as friendly as the other two should meter reader guy show up. They phone ahead now. No new dog tho. lol

I make sure that any wiring I do is up to code and have a dedicated 220V line to run my lights etc.

Even my fishing/hunting buddy is left out of the loop. I just tell him I get all this great herb from a buddy that grows and he's a happy camper.

It sure sucks to be stuck between a rock and a hard place like you seem to be but family always comes first.

Maybe your buddy has some space to spare for a couple of your plants? Maybe just score what you need from him until B is legal age. If he's nine now the next nine years will be gone before you know it. My boys are 26 and 28 and live 1400 klics away.

Lots of good vibes headed your way.

to you and yours.

[DroJo]

Originally Posted by LabRat

The only other possible interloper is the gas guy that drops by unannounced to read the meter. I fixed that by phoning the gas company to let them know I got a new dog that would not be as friendly as the other two should meter reader guy show up. They phone ahead now. No new dog tho. lol

[LabRat]

Hey Dro! Wanna buy a ghost dog? lol

By the by where is ASU. Don't answer that if messes with your stealth.

As a previous poster stated and my dad a Naval vet from WWII always told me.

Loose lips sink ships.