Meth house policy pondered

Methamphetamine-contaminated houses will scrub up well under a policy being mulled by the Invercargill City Council.

Contaminated houses will need to meet national decontamination standards under the draft policy, which is open for public submissions.

A new national standard was released in 2017, and regulatory services committee chairwoman Rebecca Amundsen said methamphetamine policy work was ‘‘happening all over the place’’.

One of the major focuses of the policy was around recording the details of the contamination on the LIM report of a property, she said.

‘‘It’s about making it so people are aware that it has been a problem in the past.’’

The policy states that a LIM report will include information on the level of contamination, remedial work undertaken, any notices issued by the council, and results of testing after decontamination has taken place.

If the council is notified of a contaminated property, the policy outlines the steps that should be taken to cleanse the building, and the standards that are required to be adhered to. The council has no specific policy on how to deal with houses contaminated with methamphetamine.

Harcourts Invercargill manager Wayne Ellis said buyers and property owners were aware of the risks of contamination but it had not proved to be a big problem in Southland.

‘‘We’ve been noticing more clauses that people want properties checked [for contamination], but we have not been noticing a significant number that are failing these tests.’’

The tests were part of owners and buyers doing their due diligence on a property, and the majority of tests were coming back negative, he said.

‘‘We’re not finding that opening a can of worms.’’

In the minority of cases where there was a positive test, the properties in question had been able to be decontaminated.

Detective Senior Sergeant Stu Harvey said the issue of methamphetamine was not unique to the southern region, but nationally saw evidence of increased usage.

‘‘Our staff continually deal with the tragic outcomes associated with incidents where drugs are the underlying problem.’’

The council is accepting submissions on the draft policy until April 27. it’s