Stuff You Should Know - How Grow Houses Work

Episode Date: August 10, 2010

As many as one in five houses in Vancouver, British Columbia are used to grow marijuana. Join Josh and Chuck as they step inside indoor grow houses to see what's going on. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You've been dreaming about this baby your entire life a small beautiful bundle of joy that deserves only the best Everything about your baby is one of a kind from the pregnancy to the birth from whether they're a napper or a baby Who doesn't want to miss a thing at Caden Lane? We want you to make everything as unique as your bundle of joy even that essential hospital overnight bag We're the one stop shop for all things baby mommy and family Celebrate your perfect baby Caden Lane comm It's time to reboot your credit card with Apple card Apple card is designed to help you pay less interest Unlike other cards it estimates how much interest you'll owe and suggests moves to help you pay off your balance faster

Also, you can keep more of your money apply now in the wallet app on iPhone and start using it right away Subject to credit approval interest estimates on the payment wheel are illustrative only and may not fully reflect actual interest charges on your account Estimates are based on your posted account balance at the time of the estimate and do not include pending transactions Or any other purchases you make before the end of the billing period Welcome to stuff you should know from house stuff works comm Hey and welcome to the podcast, I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant We also want to extend a welcome back to Yeti Jerry, yeah, we just got back from Guatemala. Yeah, her second tour of duty with the co-ed

Yeah, she just got back. Yeah, you know what quickly Josh. I should mention because I promised Anne. I would do this co-ed Still has their text donation campaign going. Oh, yeah, you can still do it. Yeah, they left it open. So if you want to buy schoolbooks for life for a Guatemalan child and you can do that for $5 by texting the word stuff To two zero two two two very nice and texting data rates applying on that gobbledygook But yes, we would raise a lot of money and it's still open So she said you should remind people from time to time. That's great So then Jerry just came back all like Rosie from Guatemala again. I know she's that country got under her skin. Yeah. Yeah Now she's getting under its skin

I don't even know what that means. Oh, I know what it means So Chuck. Yes Are you familiar with the state of California? I live there. Yes, you did. Didn't you? Yeah Well, Kelly's got a proposition on the ballot this November, right? Have you heard of prop 19? I have prop 19 would make if California passes it It would make California the first state to legalize marijuana consumption by adults. Yeah What's on the ballot right now on prop 19 is if you're over 21 you'd be able to possess and Consume and make a hat out of up to an ounce of marijuana. Yeah, just like alcohol would be treated much like alcohol

Yeah You wouldn't be you wouldn't be allowed to have it around schools Sure at schools can't sell it can't pick up your kids with like, you know your ounce tucked in your front pocket or something like that Yeah But you can also grow it in an area up to 25 square feet Really if you can from what I saw this was an outdoor garden I didn't see anything about indoor gardening interesting which just so happens to be what this podcast is about Look at you in your little intro. It's been a while. Oh, yeah, it has been nice. Sorry for the hiatus. That's right

We're back So what you were talking about was a grow room if it's a 25 square feet But what we're gonna work could be a very very tiny house. Yeah, it's worth house a dog house we're gonna talk about grow houses and Robert Lam wrote this article and that's all I need to say. Yeah, you know, it's good. Bam. Yeah, yeah He always gets real cheeky in this articles. He does. He started out this article, which is a fine fine article and If you ever wanted to see a lot of pop plants in an article on how stuff works calm. This is your chance sure

He starts out talking about how people like house plants and you know, if you have a house plant that could net you $1,000 after harvesting once why not do that? And if one can do that Why not dedicate your whole house to growing these plants and that's pretty much what a grow house is? Yeah Well, because it's illegal Josh. That's the answer that is the answer actually and thank you Chuck I think we should start this one off by saying we how stuff works discovery or Anybody we're affiliated with

don't endorse grow houses in any way shape or form no and And this is just about how they operate. That's all right. Nothing else. Right. I've got a load of stats Can we start with that? Let's do it, man. I dug out some stats on marijuana use Josh from a UN report worldwide 147 people

147 147 million people use marijuana regularly as of 2002 and And percentage wise it has led guess what country would you think? percentage percentage percentage wise Luxembourg It's a good guess. I would guess Jamaica just because I'm an idiot and I'm like, yeah Bob Marley, right? Papa New Guinea 30% of their country regularly uses marijuana the only country in the world where an outbreak of Kuru

has occurred and Followed by Micronesia and Ghana and then I think South Africa was right after that. Hmm South Africa is pretty populous Yeah, well, they're smoking a lot of weed. That's about worldwide That's about ten times the number of people that smoke it in the US, right? Well, there's different stats when you talk about pot use. I'll bet you can't leave the pot heads to compile decent Well, there's always the one stat where they're like, have you ever tried it? And so if you're talking about that 41% of the American population over the age of 12 has tried marijuana one time 41% Jarringly 80% of the population under the age of 12 has tried it. Not true. Well, you didn't see that one coming not true

But as far as use regular use I think 14.8 million Americans regularly. I'm sorry. I do have that they use marijuana in the past month 14.8% and 25% of Americans report that they've used it in the last year at least once So don't you always feel bad for that one person who like hasn't used to smoke pot all the time? And then quit smoking for years and then smoked it and then like three and a half weeks later is surveyed and it's like Yes, yes, I have right really. That's not an accurate reflection. It was a college thing Yeah, and then again three and a half weeks ago, but that was it right Yeah, when my college friend visited So those are the stats on marijuana use if you're talking grow houses

Robert included a couple cool ones in Humboldt County, California, which is known for its good marijuana and lots of it they I Think it says 1,000 out of the 7,500 homes in that county are grow homes. Yes Because they supply a lot of the medical marijuana in California Yeah, and they enjoy some protection from the government at least the county government if not I guess the state government too because California has had Legalization of medical marijuana since 1996. Yeah, so but apparently that covers the growers and the sellers

But not the people who transport it. Yeah, which is interesting. It is Which is that's got to be a nerve-racking job. You know, it's like you're the only one left out there, right? And I think Vancouver is the other cool stat was in Vancouver, Canada one out of every five houses is a grow house They say apparently the the the grow house that the pot growing industry in British Columbia employed an estimated 20,000 to 60,000 people in 2000 really and

Their 2000 yield was like four billion dollars worth or something wholesale I've got one more stat because I promised in Atlanta stat when we did our prison podcast and Georgia was like the number one in prisons Either that or you will eventually think that promise. I'm not sure which order. We're releasing these but Atlanta, Georgia 41% of the people arrested in Atlanta Say they have smoked pot within the past month Arrested for whatever really? Yeah, and that leads the the nation Wow in the ATL. I had no dirty south. Yeah. Yeah Stone like them white boys smoking them white buds

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All you need is that computer and printer set your business up for success when you get started with stamps.com today Just use our promo code stuff for a special offer That's gonna include a four-week trial plus free postage and that free digital scale no long-term Commitments or contracts. Just go to stamps.com click on the microphone at the top of the page and enter our code stuff A binge-worthy show about Jesus the chosen season three is here Come and see what the buzz is about the chosen explores the imperfect and messy relationships of real humans following Jesus The first six episodes are available now Stream each new episode for free plus watch exclusive content like the aftershow only in the new chosen app

Download the chosen app on mobile and TV streaming devices visit binge jesus.com to learn more All right, Josh grow houses Let's do this. All right, Chuck if you are a Grow house operator like you said it's not just to grow room you got going your entire house is dedicated to growing marijuana It's a big business. It's a huge business. You're running your own business essentially, right? And you have a lot of stuff to pull up put up with it's a very high stress job Especially in areas where it is in no way shape or form legal, which is most places not only are you Um prime for being robbed by armed gunmen sure who just want to basically take all your pot or your money

Or unarmed pot heads, right? You just want all your pot your rippers is what they're called of yours homegrown Billy Bob Thornton. Oh, yeah Is that what they're called? Yeah, I haven't seen that in a while. Um, let's see You so you've got being ripped off or being shot while you're being ripped off. You've got the cops You have Basically the people who are buying from you. Yeah, that you have to keep happy But really at the center of this from what I understand is the plant Right, and it's this isn't just a you this is not these operations are not just I've got some plants growing around these are

Incredibly intense farming operations. Oh, yeah I'm very sophisticated and they are very people have figured out what the ideal conditions to grow marijuana is and We will share them now. Yeah, and not only grow marijuana, but they figure out the ideal conditions to grow the most potent the most dense Marijuana per plant so you get the maximum bang for your buck when you go to sell right apparently a well-informed Indoor operation produces pot with 52% more THC than the stuff grown outdoors Really? That's what I read. Wow So Josh, there's a couple of ways you can do this

You can grow it in soil like just a regular old plant or you can grow it hydroponically, which is pretty popular these days Sure hydroponics Josh is you've probably heard that name on the news And if you didn't know what it was it it means that you're not using soil It's a plant growing without soil, right? They use a nutrient-rich water. Yeah, it's not just pot plants You can grow anything hydroponically right or I don't know about anything, but yeah I think pretty much any plant you could grow. Can you anybody who's been to Epcot has seen hydroponics in action exactly? Yeah, I think they grow big old hydroponic tomatoes down there. Oh, really? Yeah Basically you're you have you are showing human domination and exploitation over a plant when you grow it without soil and just a nutrient-rich solution

Yes, and so what you're talking about are containers and trays drip systems Automated watering systems or manual dehumidifiers dehumidifiers and I mean these are just a few of the things you need for hydroponics Well, and not just not just hydroponics I mean you're probably gonna need a dehumidifier a drip irrigation system Yeah, true no matter how you're growing the plants can be fairly demanding, right? Yes and You're also going to need light lots of light because with the grow house you'll find as we keep talking

Most grow houses are totally sealed off from the rest of the world. Yeah for very good reasons So they're creating this artificial environment and so there's no sunlight whatsoever that ever touches these plants, right? It's all basically thousand watt horticulture bulbs and apparently those can sustain 12 to 15 plants and As Robert puts it into perspective This is a thousand watt bulb and the average incandescent light bulb in a house Runs from 40 watts to 150 watts, right Chuck. Have you ever Turned a hundred and fifty watt light off and unscrewed it real quick You know, it's very hot. That's a hundred and fifty. It's awful

These guys are using a thousand watt light bulbs and that's just for 12 to 15 plants So if you have a couple hundred plants in a house that's sealed off hermetically It's gonna get kind of hot, right? Yes, it is. Let's talk about those lights for a minute. Okay, a thousand watts a piece What you're doing is trying to mimic the Sun So obviously you want it to be very powerful, right? And the other thing you're doing is you're you're affecting How this plant actually grows the life cycle and the growing and the budding cycle of this plant? You can completely control if you're growing indoors because the Sun is not there to get in the way you can fake it all

Yeah, you can use reflectors now to get as much light as you can So it's it's being exposed to light directly by the bulb and indirectly from this some reflective I guess material. Yeah, right You I think they've figured out that what is it? 16 to 18 hour days are optimal to get them started Yeah, that's the beginning of the growth period and then when you want your plant to flower You slow it down you shorten the days and then all of a sudden boop and this also makes for bigger denser Buds. Yeah, and for those of you not hip to the cause

That's where you that's that's where the money is. That's where the the THC. Yeah It's a flowering plant and the flower is the bud and it's the female that flowers so all the plants in there in the grow house are female they weed out all the males and They're essentially controlling the the the Sun to to an extent where they can produce this super potent pot right and if you Look for this article on how stuff works. You will find it very appropriately in the flowering plant sub channel. Is it? Yes, interesting. This could go in a lot of sub channels. It definitely like the adventure channel or entertainment, I don't know

So you talked about the heat the heat that is a big It is a problem. Also Electricity is a big problem too Chuck because think about it. Remember we said the average incandescent bulb is 40 to 150 watts Yeah, you're running several thousand watt bulbs and like your average living room is just wired to handle one Most living rooms can handle one one thousand watt bulb Yeah, which means you better know an electrician a and B that electrician better love free pot

Because you're gonna need to rewire your house. Yeah rewire the house a lot of times They'll jack into the a lot of times a higher former or current power company employees to help them out current power company very nice pull it and They will Sometimes they will rewire that the home or the grid on that street They were reroute power to your house, which messes everyone else up, right? And potentially maxes out the the the grid in your area Yes, it does it could do that also exposes everybody to electrocution if you didn't use a power company guy and you tried it yourself

Yeah, which is a really bad idea. Yes, no matter what you're stealing power for to grow pot Because you don't like paying utility companies. It doesn't matter rewiring the electricity that's coming into your house Yeah, is a really bad idea. Yeah, that's how my granddad died. No, it's not. Yeah. No, it's not. Yeah, he was He was knocked from a telephone pole. He was an electrician He wasn't like rewiring for grow houses, but he was like 30 feet up on a telephone pole And you know you you test out the wire by hitting the back of your hand to it Or you did back then because if you do the front of your hand it can grasp the hold of it Oh, yeah, so he hit it on the back of his hand

It was alive where and it knocked him out of the pole and he landed on his head and then spent the next like a few years in a Hospital bed. What ruling and then he died. What? Yeah Isn't that crazy? I was a little kid. I didn't know. Wow. That's the most amazing dead grandfather story I know I know very sad. Wow, and I never hardly know him so Getting back to the heat though. Um, finally marijuana If you have a house a grow house full of these lights It could potentially be a hundred degrees Fahrenheit inside your house at night at night, right?

So that's a problem because it's really hot and that's not comfortable and by the way, that's 38 degrees Celsius Thank you for our friends who don't live in Liberia But it's also a problem because marijuana grows best between 70 and 80 degrees and can do okay up to about 95 If it's a co2 rich environment, right, and they have to do artificially they figured out that that's Kind of what you want I guess from indoor grow houses these horticulturists to figure it out that you do want to keep it hot Because you do want the co2 environment richer because again it produces thicker denser bigger buds, which is bigger money again Yes, and so to combat the heat though what they do is they put a lot of a lot of air conditioning units ventilation fans To maintain their temperature and Robert pointed out that one 1,000 watt bulb

requires a fan and 28 a single fan and 2800 British thermal units of cooling right and a typical five ton AC unit puts about 60,000 BT use out right so your your Central AC unit outside of your house. Yeah could conceivably handle, you know a small house grow operation, right? Yeah, but it has to run Constantly, which again means that you are using up the juice and a fan on each plant Yeah, you got 200 plants you got 200 fans running. No, I think I think that like you can assign a fan to a lot more than one plant Well, if you don't know what you're doing Chuck just proved his innocence

That's right The other thing that's a problem is just like any plant that you're growing is insects and mildew and spores fungus I got more on that in a second, but yes, well, let's hear it. No, well the way they combat that jerk is charcoal filtration Increasing CO2 levels that kill these things. Yeah, it's also good for the plants Yeah, I thought that was really clever because you think about it an insect needs oxygen to live too, right? Sure, so you just jack up the CO2 levels once in a while it suffocates everything and But your plants are like, oh, yeah, yeah bring it on

Yeah, and the other thing they'll do is they'll just seal it off from the outside world So you're right medically sealed off. Yes a few insects as possible. Yes, so Chuck Not only does sealing off your plants your whole grow operation your entire house From the outside world good for your plants number one You don't have you have completely climate controlled conditions Yeah, you have a natural gas burner to introduce more CO2 you You know exactly what the temperature is going to be because you know how many lights you have going right you have your AC set to the perfect temperature

it also prevents the cops from Getting hip to your operation, right? Yeah, cuz it's illegal. Well, yeah, you mentioned the charcoal filter for outgoing air You still have to vent your air, right? Yeah, sure So you you have a charcoal filter It's gonna cut down on the smell of pot because as Robert points out pot has a very distinctive smell and hundreds of pot plants Have a really really strong distinctive smell, right? Yeah, so the coffee can and gonna cover that up No downy or a paper towel tube with downy sheets in the end. No, that's not gonna work

So you're right They use the the filtration systems to send the air back out and hopefully your neighbors are never wise to the fact that they're They're person living next door to them. It probably isn't even living next door It's probably just full of marijuana plants, right many times it is. Well, remember you said that you want Ideally if you're going to steal electricity you want a guy from the power company to do it and one of the reasons why you would steal electricity is Because the power company will notice yeah, if you have a power bill that's six to seven times the average for A house your size. Yeah, and it's like that every month. Yeah, that's gonna tip them off a lot of growers

Will stagger the days like let's say you have a grow house, but your house is is set up into several different rooms So each room would represent, you know You have a day going in one room and then it's nighttime in a couple other rooms and it's starting a day in another room So you're using the least amount of electricity at once, right, right? And it staggered power companies know to look for that kind of thing and they'll turn you in they will so a lot of growers will Use generators, right? But these first of all are very expensive 10,000 to 20,000 bucks, right? Yeah, that's that's for the the big the big daddy that can like run your whole house, right?

Apparently a 50 light 50 light thousand watt grow operation needs about 80 kilowatts, so you do need a big daddy generator problem is big daddy generators are super super loud Yeah, and again if you are you know not in a rural area, which most grow houses are not out in the sticks Just because there's not that many houses out there, right? Yeah, they're in the suburbs So you really have to figure out how to adeptly steal your electricity or you have to figure out how to mask the noise of your generator Yeah, the other problem with a generator is it can break down? You're not tied to the grid and if your generator breaks down at the wrong time, and you've got

$200,000 worth of pot growing in your house that means your business is in jeopardy. Yeah, so it's a fire hazard I mean generator is not necessarily the smartest way to go No, and in the same way that that Electricity or the need for electricity presents a problem and a requirement So too does a need for water, right? You got to water your plants. Yeah, even if you have an extremely efficient system Right an automatic drip system, right? You're still going to use a lot more water than you normally would in a house So number one you get the water company keeping tabs on this water usage that that in the house's history has never been sure even

Remotely like this they'll turn you into right But again people have figured out how to steal water They're those water meters. Uh-huh. They actually they're they're they have paddles that are spun By the water that's coming into the house Yeah, so people have figured out that you can drill holes in these paddles So more water passes through than is detected crazy. Isn't that just Primitively ingenious. Yeah, it is. Yeah, I didn't know that till I read this Josh Let's talk about managing a grow house a grow house and how you how you would do that

There's a lot of factors because it is a business You've got a lot of money coming in and out. You've got people you got to manage. Yeah I didn't really realize this that a lot of them are set up by Secret investors. Yeah, it's not just organized crime or really really ambitious potheads It's very likely not a very ambitious pothead if you've got a grow house like a grow room Maybe so mm-hmm, but a grow house is very likely run by somebody else in a larger organization Right, and that person probably will never set foot in that house. Oh, no. No, they'll fund it right with cash That can't be traced back to them, but they will probably never go near it right through cooking realtor

They're probably doing smoke pot. That's my guess. They look at it like units. Yeah, there's making money. Sure We talked about people that work there. It is not necessarily like the Billy Bob Thornton movie with a dude and his buddies running their grow house a lot of times. It's more nefarious and it's some Someone who has been brought into the country illegally Mm-hmm to repay a favor for being brought in they may say alright You got a sort of BR indentured servant here and work at this grow house for so long for this one season or whatever Yeah, there's a big problem one of the big arguments against the poorest border in the south of the US is that coyotes Make people smuggle drugs act as mules when they're running through the desert, you know getting into the US right

They have they tend to have lots and lots of drugs on them. They're being exploited I didn't realize that they were forced to manage grow houses, too But that was pretty interesting. Well, it's either that a prostitution, but it's specifically in California He said the Vietnamese immigrants and to have to do this to pay off debts. Absolutely. Well, I Think I'd rather work in a grow house and be forced into prostitution you would it take you forever to pay off your debts as a prostitute Appreciate that I think So that is how you would manage it with temporary workers during the Season when it's the harvest season you might bring in additional workers and chances are these people aren't on the up and up either

They're not your buddies. It's maybe illegal immigrants once again, right and one of the reasons why you would not want this position is because again This is a very dangerous job to have Even if this isn't your stuff, you have no idea what's going on. Yeah, you just came into the country illegally You're nervous about that to begin with even more nervous because you are spending your first few months in an illegal grow house Which is why as we said most grow houses are not in the rural areas. They're in the suburbs Here in Georgia tons of them all over County. Yeah, they're always in Gwinnett, Henry. They're all over the place. Yeah Um, and so you want your house to blend in in every way shape or form, right? And as Robert said this can be This can include buying garden gnomes. Yeah, just like a regular dude. Yeah, you want to keep the the

The flow of traffic. Yeah to a minimum sure, but you don't want it to look like no whenever comes there because that's pretty suspicious As well. Yeah, you want to be friendly I imagine but you don't want anybody to be to feel comfortable asking questions and personal questions that kind of thing You don't black out your windows with aluminum foil. No, you don't not that kind of thing. You want your grow Rooms within the grow house to be like just like I said within the house, right? And also there's you remember we talked about infrared cameras that cops used to bus grow houses because they could sense heat Do we talk about that? We talked about this like in some other pockets a while back. Remember, I cracked the case on it Um, this so apparently one way to combat this in a grow house is a room within a room, right?

So you when you're sealing it off, you're not using your whole the whole room in the house You're allowing you're basically setting up a room within a room to grow in so that the the outside room Can kind of keep it cool. So from a helicopter when you're looking at a house, right? It doesn't look like it's putting out more heat than average, right? Or like look that guy's clearly an illegal Vietnamese immigrant because he's sweating bullets in there Exactly. That's that's the that's the level. It's 100 degrees in their home. Yet. They're running their ace unit constantly, right? Those silly people 2023 is already well underway everybody So don't wait any longer to level up your small business and the way you can do that is by joining up with stamps.com

That's right because with stamps.com you're gonna be able to print your own postage and shipping labels right there from your home or office Or home office and you know, it's ready to go in minutes You can get back to running your business sooner than later. Yep stamps.com is like the post office elevated They have rates you literally can't find anywhere else Which comes in handy because postage rates just increased again like up to 84 off of usps and ups Plus stamps.com automatically tells you your cheapest and fastest shipping options See you stamps.com to print postage wherever you do business All you need is that computer and printer set your business up for success when you get started with stamps.com today

Just use our promo code stuff for a special offer that's going to include a four week trial plus free postage and that free digital scale No long-term commitments or contracts. Just go to stamps.com Click on the microphone at the top of the page and enter our code stuff A binge-worthy show about jesus the chosen season three is here come and see what the buzz is about The chosen explores the imperfect and messy relationships of real humans following jesus The first six episodes are available now stream each new episode for free plus watch exclusive content like the after show Only in the new chosen app download the chosen app on mobile and tv streaming devices Visit binge jesus.com to learn more

So josh you got a neighbor They're pretty cool. They never cause you any problems. They're real quiet They keep their yard nice and trim and their garden gnomes shiny What's the what's the problem then if someone has got a grow house next door to you? Yeah, why wouldn't you want that? Well like first and foremost you don't want people coming to rob them. Okay That's one thing remember we talked about the electrical grid So it can mess up your electrical system. Yeah, or pose a fire risk to your neighborhood. Sure If you are in any way shape or form an environmentalist

The idea of somebody using six to seven times the average of a normal single family residence In electricity you realize that that adds to a lot more pollution. Yeah And it also can add to it much more directly in 2008 in Humboldt There was an environmental disaster where a thousand gallons of diesel fuel spilled into a local creek And it was for it was from a generator really That was operating a grow house out in the sticks out in the woods crazy Um, and actually as a result of that Humboldt county has undertaken a public service announcement campaign for local growers urging them to go

Like to get greener in their practices because it's really not an environmentally friendly means of cultivating plants indoors Well, dude, if it's going to happen anywhere, it's going to happen in northern california Right because they are very green. Mm-hmm. They love their weed another problem chuck if I may you may. Oh, thank you Uh in the with indoor growing um all the conditions needed to Encourage an outbreak of black toxic mold. Oh really are all present apparently Toxic mold outbreaks have been linked to grow houses And those actually drive up the homeowners insurance of everybody in the area. Well, sure one house has black mold Yeah, everybody's insurance goes up

Well, yeah, and that's the other thing too is chances are when you leave the grow house behind or when you're busted It's probably not going to be some like great house left in good condition It's probably ransacked and maybe water damaged or heat damaged and that's going to Obviously bring down the property value in your neighborhood too. So most decidedly that's another good reason But if your neighborhood already has low property values thanks to foreclosures And abandoned houses that have boarded up windows and doors You are basically living in an area that is absolutely perfect for grow houses Yeah, one of the unintended

Unexpected consequences of the current housing crisis in south florida grow houses in Huge neighborhoods that have abandoned and foreclosed houses like really high acres. Yeah I was apparently are big into it down there. Well, florida is way into it. I was trying to find the biggest Grow house that's ever been busted And by the way, if you type into google news search for the year 2010 Grow houses. Mm-hmm. You get 184 articles just on grow house busts this year. Yeah on google news They're all over the place

They are but the biggest one I found and this may not be the biggest but there was one in lake county, florida Where there were 2,000 plants. Wow in this home. Wow, and I remember there was one I saw an article when I was working at my last job where this I think it was in tennessee Where they showed this dude's grow house and he had In the in the basement rear of the house. There was this hatch and all of a sudden in this hatch was a You opened the door and there was a You know a 15 foot diameter tunnel that went like 100 feet into this mountain Where there was more operations going on like this dude tunneled into the side of a mountain

Oh my goodness from his basement. Wow, and they busted him. Wow, and these are just the bust I mean imagine how many there are still operating On a daily basis all around the country. Well, that was another thing too Um the you you talked about real estate prices being driven down by a busted grow house Prices can also go up. Yeah, sure Especially if like an organization who's funding these things decides that they want to buy a dozen houses And a sub a suburban area at once, you know in a small enough area That's going to really affect the the housing prices in that area and drive them up

Yeah, because it's it's reducing the supply of available homes. Yeah pretty interesting stuff I thought this whole thing was good I thought so too If you want to read this great article by robert lamb You can type in grow houses on the search bar at house stuff works calm again again again I cannot stress this enough this podcast in no way shape or form represents any kind of endorsement of any illegal activity whatsoever Yeah, people always ask us, you know, you should cover Pot legalization or cover drugs in different ways and we've wanted to because it's really interesting and it's a part of the American fabric

Sure, you can't just ignore it. Be like, what are you talking about? That's not interesting But it's it's tricky for us, you know Oh, yeah, it's hard to talk about grow houses and explain how to do it without sounding like We're giving a tutorial on how to do it But the way I look at it chuck is Ultimately our goal or the goal of the site is to explain absolutely every aspect of the world Yeah, including ticks one at a time including route 66. Yeah, including grow houses and everything else in between that's right So chuck, what is it time for listener mail? Do we have it? Yeah, I've got one today. Do it

Josh I'm gonna call this our best voodoo email Dear chuck and josh I just listened to your voodoo podcast and thought I had a fun story you might like I was dating a guy back in 2007 who I thought was deeply religious He had lots of statues all around his house st. Candles and a very odd quote spice rack Unquote around our third week together. I found out he practiced voodoo and was an actual bokor. Wow Uh bokor are voodoo sorcerers. I think we pointed this out in the podcast, huh? As he told me they served the loa with both hands

And practiced both white and black magic all the statues were for the voodoo rituals. He performed and he could keep them out Uh keep the bad spirits out and not worry about his very catholic roommate who would also not stay around clearly Even though he should have explained to him that there were a lot of Synchronization of Catholicism and voodoo. I was not on good terms with my parents at the time. There were Mormons Who work in the temple? Oh, yeah, mom and dad this guy This is how I get back and this is a guy too. So he is obviously gay as well He's probably not popular with his parents. His Mormon parents. I would think as far as we can tell As far as we can tell they may have loved him being a gay guy dating a voodoo bokor. It's like coa fest

So, uh, anyway, the black magic practicing boyfriend was right up my alley at the time. This is from, uh Mal in tri cities, Washington And I actually confirmed that I could read this on the air because it's a little, you know Tricky and he said sure because he was a big jerk. So go ahead and read it Looks like okay. Thanks malo's that was far and away the most interesting voodoo email that we got Uh, and I'd also like to take this opportunity to apologize to everybody else who sent us voodoo emails Yeah, seriously, uh, if you want to send us an email about anything at all, uh, we'd love to hear from you Just, uh, wrap it up. Send it to stuff podcast

at wait chuck We're on facebook We got a killer facebook presence. Yeah, thanks, especially to you. Well more than 15,000 fans now Which warms our hearts, right and people are active and commenting and sharing things and it's exactly how I hoped it would be Uh, we've got almost 6,000 followers on twitter. You're killing the twitter my friends. Very funny stuff. Uh, we have a blog Uh, stuff you should know on howstuffworks.com. Yeah, great blog and we have a ton of other blogs on how stuff works as well Um, and we have a kiva page. We are trying to make it to a quarter of a million dollars donated by the first anniversary

of our Inception's inception. Yeah, which is october 6th. I believe. Yeah, and big thanks to glenn and saunia who have sort of been running The team for us and we just made it to the 200,000 dollars loaned mark. That's awesome Yeah, so if you want to join you can go to kiva.org. It's kiva.org slash team Slash stuff you should know and again if you have an email you want to send us wrap it up Send it to stuff podcast at howstuffworks.com

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