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How to spot a Drug House in your neighbourhood?


Do you have a drug house in your neighbourhood?

Drug houses don’t just happen in other neighbourhoods. There are drug houses in all types of neighbourhoods. There are four things that make a drug house:

• Product

• Buyer

• Seller

• Location

Most neighbourhoods have very little control over Product, Buyer, or Seller. Drug dealers look for Locations where neighbours do not communicate and isolate themselves. This makes it easy to intimidate those neighbours that do notice drug activity.

Drug dealers like neighbourhoods that say, “It can’t happen here.” Money is a key element for the drug dealer. If they establish a drug house in a neighbourhood where kids and adults have money to buy drugs, business will thrive.

What are the warning signs of drug activity in the neighbourhood?

Do any of these sound familiar?

  • Excessive foot traffic to and from a house or property. Also during odd hours.

  • Loitering in or around a house. Also if there is a lot of trash around, or if the trash is never put out for the garbage collectors, and is always hauled personally hauled away.

  • Weird Smells. They might try to cover it up. But any large amount of drugs will leave a distinct odour.

  • Frequent and unusual traffic patterns such as: Stop - Enter – Leave. What to look for is people coming up and staying for less than five minutes, or a minute or two and leaving, and also cars coming in and out, in and out, or walking. If you have a visitor nobody really stays for one minute, unless they are picking something up

  • Vehicles frequently stopping and a resident comes out and talks briefly with occupants of car.

  • Another sign a house is being used for dealing drugs is if people park a block or so away and walk up to the house. They may be suspicious that a neighbour might be taking down license plate.

  • Windows are always blocked off. If they seem to be overly concerned about their privacy, it may be because they want to conceal their illegal activities.

  • The lights are always on. Those lights you see may be indoor lamps that allow them to grow massive plants without having to rely on a single ray of natural sunlight.

  • Constant visits by vagrants pushing wheelie Bins to a particular house. Stolen wheelie bins are often used to hide stolen goods. These stolen goods are often taken to some drug houses in exchange for a quick fix.

  • Threats of intimidation connected to a residence.

  • Open exchange of drugs and money.

  • Gang activity in the neighbourhood.

  • Graffiti on structures in the area.

  • Sudden increase in criminal activity.

Prevention is the best way to stop drug houses!

Start a Community Watch group and get to know your neighbours. Meet and know your Community Police Officers. As problems develop in the neighbourhood, work with law enforcement to resolve them quickly.

The problem of drugs in our community is on going and if people reported the suspicious behaviour to police it would help them. You can reduce the chance that a drug house moves into your neighbourhood.

What should you do if there is a drug house in your neighbourhood?

One of the tools of the drug dealer is intimidation. There is safety in numbers.

• Build a cooperative effort with other neighbours.

• Using the House Watch sheet, log all activity connected to the suspected drug house.

• Talk to your area Community Police Officer and give the information from your House Watch sheet to them.

• Speak with property owners about problems that the tenants are causing for the neighbours. If you are having problems, the property owner is probably having problems too.

• If you have any information about drug related activities in your area please contact your local Law enforcement to assist you. For anonymous tip-offs contact Crime Line

If you know of a drug house in your area, please Private Message us on Facebook so that we can mark it as a drug hotspot on the Helderberg Against Crime Map to warn others…

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