The Smoke Detector for Meth Labs

Your smoke detector seems like it's on your side, right? And your carbon monoxide detector is looking out for you. But in New Zealand, that extra box on your ceiling is looking out for your landlord. I guess the others were too—since fires and dead bodies are probably bad for property values—but I can't really find the upside for residents who live with a MethMinder in their homes that is waiting to call the authorities on them should they tamper with the box or, you know, break bad and cook some meth.

Ken Hetherington, a software engineer from Pakuranga, Auckland, designed the device after a friend was forced to spend $28,500 (AUS) to repair a vacation home that had been converted into a lab. The MethMinder runs on a long battery life and is fitted with a Vodafone SIM card that sends out a warning to both the police and the landlord if it smells something meth-y in the air.

The site explains:

Similar in look and size to a smoke alarm, Meth Minder is visible to tenants. It is a stand alone self powered solution which communicates via the nation wide digital cell network. Fitted with multiple tamper sensors, our control room is notified if it is interfered with.

If a property is being used as a P-Lab, the Meth Minder will detect this activity and then send a silent message to the control room.

The monitoring team will then notify your nominated contact and the police. This makes Meth Minder the most effective deterrent available.

Of course, MethMinder could be doing something for the next person who lives in that property. It goes without saying that no one wants to move into a former meth lab. The chemicals seep into the woodwork, drywalls, ventilation and sewer pipes of the lab and can cause health problems from headaches and rashes to respiratory problems. Decontamination involves calling experts to come in wearing hazmat suits to scrub the place down, and can cost anywhere from a few thousand dollars to tens of thousands.

And far from being a problem unique to the US, meth has been making blazing inroads in New Zealand for over a decade now. Meth labs there are called “clan labs,” and methamphetamine is called “P.” I'm told, that's sort of what meth being cooked smells like, but according the MethMinder's website, the “P” is for pure.

According to The Australian, New Zealand and Australia have the highest rates of methamphetamine use in the world. “Tens of thousands of homes in New Zealand have been rendered uninhabitable, with landlords forced to pull down some of the worst affected.”

Nicky Stratford, sales and marketing manager for Auckland-based MethSolutions, told the Waikato Times that in addition to being a sensor, the sight of the MethMinder is an effective deterrent. "Ultimately, at the end of the day, [MethMinder] is about protecting the asset [property] but also protecting the health and safety of the tenants and the future tenants going into the property,” she said.

In a story on the installation of the MethMinder that ran in the Waikato Times, the residents don't seem all that phased by the installation of a MethMinder. "It was basically like…‘Install away. You're not going to find anything'."

Which, according to MethMinder's creators, is the point. The goal is to get people to not ever cook meth in your house.

On a small scale that seems attainable, but MethMinder's claims that the end result will be less methamphetamine in existence seem…unsupported at best, let's say. After all, the last big crack down in America is why people started cooking in homes.

According to Fox News, “prior to the federal Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act of 2006, which regulated the sale of ephedrine and related products used in meth production, the drug was typically manufactured in "superlabs" by organized criminal outfits using industrial space. An unintended consequence of the law was to drive production into residential homes.”

Where could meth labs go next? Like so much industry, making meth has mostly been outsourced to China and Mexico.