Renting sucks- here is why... Had to close up shop for a day!

[texasluv]

Let me start off by saying renting a house sucks ass! I’ve been doing this same shit for years and it always seems that I get stuck having to do an emergency shutdown every 2-3 years on average. Here’s the deal:

2 days ago the landlord called and said he is going to refinance all his properties so he needed to have an appraiser come out and walk through the house. I asked him when, and he said in the next few days and that he would call and give me a heads up. 10 minutes later he called back and said they’d be at the house tomorrow (which was yesterday). So basically I had about 24 hours notice that a real estate appraiser was going to be walking through my grow house- just fucking great…

So, 2 nights ago, just hours after the fateful call from the landlord myself and two other very trustworthy friends got to work tearing down the 4600W grow going on in the house. We had to disassemble a 10’ x 10’ x 10’ room we built inside of another room and get all the equipment out of the house. We then had to take down a 4’ x 8’ hydrohut and a 4’ x 4’ hydrohut that were the veg units.

Keep in mind I live downtown in a pretty crowded neighborhood- there are about 3 houses an acre on average! The neighbors had their lights on until 1am so we couldn’t start moving anything until after they went to bed. We shut everything down, packed it up, and put it all in a U-haul truck we rented earlier in the day. Took until 4:30am the following morning but we got it done. We also had to wire up a 1500W power inverter so we could run our 6” carbon filter and can fan inside the U-haul so it didn’t stink up the whole neighborhood.

The U-haul was moved to a safe location and sat for 24 hours unattended and lonely. The plants are sure to show signs of stress due to the fact they are used to perfect conditions all the time and they had nothing for almost 36 hours. We got everything rebuilt and setup the following night. The reassembly took from 5pm yesterday to just after 8am this morning. It was stressful and I think I’m about ready for bed now that the adrenaline rush is starting to calm down.

Moral of the story- don’t grow in rentals if you can avoid it because your landlord can come into your house if they have a good reason. I know this, but buying a house here just isn’t an option at the moment. Since I rent I have to be prepared to deal with this kind of crap. Also, make sure you have some good friends you can rely on in desperate times. There is absolutely no way in hell I could have shut down in time without my friends.

Time for bed……

 

[yamaha_1fan]

you may have been able to tear it down solo, you just wouldnt have been able to save anything

Glad to hear it all worked out for you.

 

[spiritlevel]

Texasluv, Good heads up!!

I've been offered a rented spot to conduct my hobby due to incorporate around 120 plants for a few months. It sounded good to begin with, but over time I've reconsidered it to be a bit of a nuisance with regard to keeping everything looking normal and building a room within a room. Hauling in all the hardware and trying not to make anything look suspect is only a portion of the battle. I wouldn't want to be encountered with such a situation personally. Recently I had a phone call. The caller was enquiring as to weather or not I wanted to buy some grow equipment. The question was raised as to what and what was for sale. Their reply covered everything from a thermometer to clones and everything in between required to grow medicine. I then had to ask how they came by it. "... found in the street..." I shan't go into any more detail, but my conclusion is that someone was renting a place to grow in and the landlord let themselves in unexpectedly and saw what was going on. Instead of calling the cops they simply decided to dump it and the tenants belongings out in front of the property. I don't know the intricacies, but that surely isn't where I'd like to end up.

Good post!!

 

[StonedStupid]

Currently I am in the first position where I am not in a renters position. I do have a roommate but he owns the property & has given me the go ahead. Personally I would be way to paranoid with having a landlord & I know personally I wouldnt want to tear my babies down & would be reluctant. More power to yea bro.

 

[spiritlevel]

Currently I am in the first position where I am not in a renters position. I do have a roommate but he owns the property & has given me the go ahead. ...

Same ere, works better when the owner knows exactly what's goin down so there aren't any unexpected visits...

 

[DIGITALHIPPY]

good job on the inverter for smell. 36h isnt too bad. hopefuly themps didnt get too warm, what type of roof? id be more worried about light... some of thoes fiberglass roofs let all the light through. at would throw my 12/12 off.. maybe your ok, i dont know.
good recovery though.

 

[Bababooey]

Can you imagine the pain if he had plants going in every room in the house? He'd still be there, taking down equipment...

 

[Harry Gypsna]

Good job on the temporary shutdown...and nice attention to detail with the filter running in the van.... the rental van /truck is a great idea for short term storage- Im going to remember that one myself. Im not in and not likely any time soon to be in any position to buy a house-uk house market is terrible-we are going back to the days of haveing property owning class and the rest of us, So growing where you live in a rental is the only option for some folk Although weve got some good tennancy rights laws over here...like if you live in a rented house-they still have to get a warrant-the owner cant just let em in coz its your home not theirs(not counting fires/floods that sort of thing), not that getting a warrant is any hardship for em...
any1 who does grow in a rental property should really think hard about their emergency takedown plan, and be ready to implement it.. Have everything you need ready like cleaning materials, correct paint to touch up anything you may have fucked with, boxes for all ur kit, a means of concealing the plants in the open between the house and the van, plenty of smellies, and some stuff to put in the room to make it look like it was being used as a bedroom/study/music room or whatever it normally should be all along.....
Hope ur plants didnt suffer too badly from it.

 

[British_Bulldog]

Hi,

You think that's bad man - try doing it on your own & then tell me about exhaustion, lol

I know u had a tough time, but when you do it on your own, you hardly get any sleep for 2-3 days, and it takes another 2-3 to recover.

I've been through almost exactly the same situation a few times, and know how it feels.....the adrenaline, the stress, the all-nighters....

One thing I would say is don't bite off more than you can chew - i.e. if your friends weren't able to help you, and you were alone and didn't finish it, you'd be locked up now, so food for thought.

My advice is make it as easy as possible to break it down in times of crisis - that is, if you can't do it all yourself in 24 hours flat, then you've bitten off more than you can chew.

If you're not sure what your limit is, do a practice run - exhausting I know, but that's what the emergency services do to rehearse emergencies, and if you find that you can't do it, you need to change your methodology or downsize.

Have a good rest and think on!

Peace

 

[Pistil Whipped]

Thanks for sharing Tex,

I think an often overlooked aspect of growroom design is the teardown. Modular setups that can break down quickly into smaller pieces (like PVC frames) are great. Have plain cardboard boxes to put all your grow eqipment and plants into so the teardown itself doesn't bring unwanted attention.

Of course a backup spot to temporarily house your plants is best, but a U-Haul is workable for a really short-term solution.

Pistil Whipped

 

[agent 420]

Your handling of the situation was great at least.

Good lesson. I agree renting sucks ass.

 

[lpski420]

I've been in your exact situation before.. Only I had 7 foot tall plants in the ground during mid october , full force. 3 rooms full of drying material, a Greenhouse, and The garage was set up for indoor.
GOt the same call .. landlord wanted to sale the house. (he knew i was growing ) but he probably thought i was doing a little closet setup or something like that. I told him that it was not a good idea to come over.. know way i could have everything cleared out within 24 hours. I pleaded and tried to bargain for time.. Asked him if i could pay an extra $1000 on the rent.. even offered to buy the house.. he wasn't having it.. sure as shit he shows up the next day to see everything. They were both speechless. there are 3 pics in my gallery of the backyard and greenhouse. to get an idea.
long story short. He freaked out and called the DEA . I had to rip everything. lost 9 months worth of work, and basically got evicted. Renting sucks. i Agree.
Theres ups and downs to both. The best idea is to search for a good landlord, cause most landlords are shady. If you own a house they can seize your property. Lots of things to think about ... It's not easy growing pot is it

 

[Greenjag]

I think most growers who've been doing it for long enough have met this sort of situation sooner or later. When a grow op has gradually evolved into something humungus with lots of clever built-in stuff it can be hard to envisage just how many hours of work have been put into it, and likewise how many hours to disassemble it. The stress and pain levels are directly proportional to the scale of the grow that's for sure!

I'm currently using the basements of an owned house - relatively safe under normal circumstances - but a valuation (appraisal for our US friends) was needed for divorce purposes. Luckilly, a couple of months notice was given on this so I was able to spend the last few weeks just planning the easiest way of making the basements look like, well, basements again. I should add that the plants were 5 weeks into flowering at the time of moving so shifting them them all into a rented van was only going to be a last resort in the neighbourhood I'm in. Decided in the end to move all 64 plants into the end room and board it up, along with most equipment. Thank god for old houses with a maze of rooms under them, the disguise worked perfectly!

I made sure I put the plants away the night before the valuer was due which meant that the dark period was only extended a few hours. After all that, when the valuer arrived he just stuck his head around the door and didn't even bother going through the rooms! Ah well, it was really good practice for any future teardowns. Only took me 6 hours to restore everything to full operation again. My partner was amazed to arrive home from work and find that she wasn't going to be up till midnight helping reassemble it all.

Smug!

 

[Mendocino]

Damn ,...take care Texasluv....you did well...