MOORESVILLE — Jennifer Nugent, 35, brought a Wii gaming system into her family’s Plainfield apartment one Saturday for her daughters, Jaylin, 11, and Kaily, 8.
It was a small gesture that should have brought happiness to the Nugent home, which also houses husband Chris, 35, and baby Mason, 18 months.
Except the apartment isn’t the Nugents’ home — at least, not permanently — and the Wii was contaminated with methamphetamine.
Chris’ eyes began burning and Jennifer’s mother, who was visiting, began complaining that she had trouble breathing.
“My husband said, ‘This is just like what happened when we were at the meth house!”’ Jennifer said.
Jennifer had retrieved the Wii from “the meth house,” which refers to the Mooresville home that she and Chris bought in spring 2013. They fled their dream home less than a year later in March 2014, when they learned the home was contaminated with methamphetamine, allegedly from the previous owner cooking, selling and using the drug in the home. The family has since relocated to an apartment in Plainfield until their home is decontaminated.
In February 2014, after months of mysterious illness plaguing her family, Jennifer suspected that their home was contaminated with the Schedule I drug and purchased two at-home test kits, one from Crisis Cleaning, based out of Bloomfield, and one from Spaulding Decon out of Florida. Both came back positive.
“I am glad I did two tests,” Jennifer said. “I was in denial. Seeing the positive results of two tests gave me confirmation.”
When they purchased the home, the Marine Corps veteran and his wife hired an inspector to survey their home for mold and termites. The results were negative.
The typical home inspection does not include a test for methamphetamine, explained Donetta Held, president of Crisis Cleaning, which is responsible for cleaning and decontaminating the Nugents’ house.
Indiana sets a limit on the amount of methamphetamine that may be present in a home that has been decontaminated before re-selling it — .5 micrograms per a 100-square-centimeter area. Crisis Cleaning’s test showed levels in the home that were 18 times that amount.
For months prior, Jennifer’s son experienced bouts of diarrhea. At 15 months old, he wasn’t crawling yet — unusual for a baby that age. The two daughters also experienced diarrhea, vomiting and migraine headaches.
“I realized later that I was cooking food for my children on a stove that (was used to cook meth),” Jennifer said. “I was basically feeding them meth.”
Jennifer and Chris routinely became out of breath from easy tasks, such as walking up a flight of stairs. The family dog, Kia, who was a healthy 11-year-old boxer when they moved in, began displaying strange behavior and health problems months after they moved from Camby to Mooresville.
Kia developed rashes and a large lump under her skin. She relentlessly licked at the windows and floors, and excessively drank from the toilet bowl to combat dehydration.
Methamphetamine is sweet and adheres to solid surfaces, such as wood floors or glass windows, often attracting a dog’s taste buds.
In February, Kia’s rapid development of breast cancer and a blinding eye infection lead the family to put her down.
Around the same time, Jennifer began to fear the worst — that her home was contaminated with a deadly drug. She consulted the Internet to learn the signs of meth contamination.
“What I found was many people saying, ‘My children got sick,’ and ‘My dog died,’” she said.
Jennifer had heard tales from the neighbors of the previous owner’s bizarre behavior — hoards of seedy visitors, burning tires in the backyard and allegations of meth use and trafficking.
Since he was never arrested for meth-related crimes, nor did the police ever visit the home, it was not placed on the list of known clandestine meth labs that is distributed to each county’s health department.
Indiana topped the list of most meth lab seizures in 2013, with 1,797 labs found by police. However, that number is estimated to only be 20 percent of the state’s operational labs, according to Indiana State Police.
House Enrolled Act 1141, which went into effect July 1, requires all meth or other drug contaminated homes to be listed on a registry that may be accessed online by Realtors and home buyers. When a home is decontaminated, it is removed from the list.
Held believes the law will help home buyers make informed decisions, but for buyers like the Nugents, the registry is virtually useless. Since the lab in their home was never discovered by authorities, it did not make the list.
“We are trying to educate people that before they buy or rent, they should test the property,” Held said. “We offer test kits online (for $49) that are the same ones that our inspectors use, and that is what the Nugents did.”
Jennifer and Chris have returned to the home a few times — clad in protective masks and gloves — to retrieve some items, such as clothing, since meth can be washed out of fabric. Jennifer removed precious family photos out of frames and used detergent, which neutralizes meth, to wipe down a few of the children’s toys. She managed to retrieve a few other necessities, along with her jewelry, which can also be wiped clean of meth.
Nothing else in the 2,400-square-foot home could be salvaged. Meth cannot be washed out of most of the furniture or carpet, and Jennifer does not want to take the risk of preserving any items that are potentially still contaminated.
Over the past couple of weeks, Crisis Cleaning has been emptying all items from the home and prepping it for decontamination.
“The real danger is porous items such as carpet, curtains, beds, couches,” said James Plessinger, a certified meth cleanup supervisor with Crisis Cleaning. He emptied the Nugent home, along with Rick Held, Donetta’s husband and business partner.
“It’s weird to see all of our home in a big dumpster,” Jennifer said on Monday, the final cleanup day.
“The process (of decontaminating a home) is a lot less abrasive than it was in years past,” Plessinger said. “We can save more houses that way.”
Crisis Cleaning has also reached out to Lowe’s, which is expected to donate appliances and hardware to refurbish the home, and the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Mooresville Post 1111 for financial help, as well as aid in labor to get the home livable again.
The Nugent home is currently empty and awaiting decontamination.
However, according to Donetta Held, Crisis Cleaning is waiting to decontaminate — a process that costs at least $10,000 — until the bank decides whether to foreclose on the home. That is because Jennifer and Chris have missed mortgage payments, as they cannot afford to pay both rent for their apartment and their mortgage.
Jennifer said she submitted a proposal to the bank this week, informing them of the situation and asking to delay payments until they can return to their home. She expects the bank to accept.
As for the rest of the family, Jennifer said they are doing their best to maintain normality until they can return home.
“Uncertainty causes anxiety,” she said. “The kids aren’t used to living on a second-floor apartment and being mindful of people living below them. They miss their big yard, they don’t have much space to play in. They’re irritable; they want their own space.”