Once a beautifully maintained five-bedroom, four-bath house was turned into a large-scale grow operation that posed a danger to the entire neighborhood….
Legalizing marijuana in California hasn’t helped get rid of black-market pot operations. In fact, the NBC4 I-Team discovered illegal grows have exploded during the pandemic.
The situation turned into one homeowner’s rental nightmare.
For more than 20 years, Jo Skibby rented her property in Rancho Cucamonga with no problems. That changed last year when the man who appeared to be the perfect tenant turned out to be anything but.
What was once a beautifully maintained five-bedroom, four-bath house is now just a damaged shell of its former self.
“It was shocking, okay? Every turn I made I saw something else,” said Skibby. “It was heartbreaking for me.”
She had no idea the tenant she’d found for her rental home had turned it into a sophisticated grow house.
“My realtor felt that it was great that he offered six months rent up front,” Skibby said.
But in the months Skibby rented to this tenant, an elaborate, illegal marijuana operation was underway. She didn’t discover it until he missed some rent payments, and she stopped by to check on the property.
By the time she called sheriff’s deputies, and they got a search warrant and raided the house a few days later, the crooks had cleared out, leaving an unbelievable mess behind.
“This whole house was turned into a production, where every room is used as a staging facility for the next grow cycle,” said Lt. Marc Bracco, of the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department Gangs and Narcotics division.
And the I-Team has learned that massive indoor grows like this one pose a danger to entire neighborhoods.
‘It Was Shocking’: Tenant Turns Calif. Rental Property Into Elaborate Marijuana Operation
