Caveats

Did your mom ever tell you, "Never assume, Dear."  We all know what assuming gets us, right?  This post is a slight deviation from my normal posts, as it is a newspaper article demonstrating the admonition, "Buyer Beware!"  In my life I hope that I will be remembered as one who has integrity and conducts herself with honor in all matters with myself and others.  Hopefully this article will remind you to do your due diligence in every endeavor you pursue and to seek out those individuals, businesses, and institutions that will be trustworthy of guiding you in your process.  After all, as your mom may have also told you (and as some parties in this article demonstrate), "There are wolves in sheep's clothing...."

Meth house auction provides cautionary tale - Tooele home auctioned although seller had been alerted to possible contamination

by Tim Gillie

STAFF WRITER

Foreclosures and short sales have brought home prices down, creating an attractive market for investors hoping to improve a property and flip it later. However, as the case of one Tooele home offered at auction last month illustrates, the admonition “buyer beware” applies doubly these days.

Williams and Williams Worldwide Real Estate Auction, an online real estate auction company based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, went ahead with an auction of a Tooele home last month despite receiving evidence of possible methamphetamine contamination at the property.  Tooele resident Marnie Beacham, along with her brother and father, make a business out of purchasing homes and either flipping them for profit or using them as rentals.  In January, Beacham found a small, bank-owned house listed at williamsauction.com that was located 880 South in Tooele.  Once Beacham decided she was interested in the property, she began doing her due diligence.  “As a routine matter, we have arbitrarily decided to test any property selling for below $100,000 for meth contamination” said Beacham, who also went door-to-door asking neighbors about the property and its former occupants. One neighbor reported suspicious activity including unfamiliar cars coming and going from the home at all hours.

Beachamcollected swab samples from the house and delivered them to ALS Environmental, a Salt Lake City environmental lab that routinely performs meth tests for state-certified decontamination specialists. The test came back positive for meth at 15 micrograms per 100 square centimeters, compared to a threshold of 0.10 micrograms per 100 square centimeters established in state code and county health regulations.

Beacham shared the results with a customer service representative at Williams and Williams and was surprised at the response she got back from their legal department.

Denise Richards, a paralegal with Williams and Williams, sent an email to Beacham explaining that after Richards had contacted the local sheriff and searched a national database, no evidence was found of methamphetamine activity at the address listed for the property.  Richards also said the test Beacham had done could not be relied on because of confusion about the address and the inability to verify the method or areas of the sample collection.

“While we agree that the confirmed presence of methamphetamine would be significant,” wrote Richards. “We do not believe the evidence we have suggests such presence and we cannot postpone the auction based on speculation.”

Beacham remained worried that a young family could move in and their children would be exposed to the contamination.  After the auction was completed, she contacted the high bidder, Jan and Marv Schaffer, of Erda.  “We looked at the test results and it was obvious that the property was very contaminated,” said Marv Schaffer. “I called Williams and Williams and they were very gracious and without any problem they allowed us to withdraw our bid.”

The house currently is not listed for sale either at williamsauction.com or on the Wasatch Front Regional Multiple listing service.

“We have forwarded all the information on the home to the owner,” said Jacob Erhard, Williams and Williams associate general counsel. U.S. Bank, the owner of the home, had the property tested after receiving information about the test done by Beacham.  “It tested positive for meth,” said Amy Frantti, spokesperson for U.S. Bank. “The property will be cleaned up. We will follow the state’s decontamination guidelines.”

There were no visual indicators of meth at the home, law enforcement records had no reports of drug activity there, and the home was not on any health department lists of contaminated property, according to Frantti.

Real estate agents are bound both legally and ethically to disclose information about what’s known in the real estate industry as “stigmatized properties,” including those with meth contamination, according to Chris Sloan, owner/broker of Group 1 Real Estate in Tooele and a former president of the Utah Association of Realtors.  “As an agent for the seller, you have to look out for their best interest, and when you have a reason to believe that a home may be contaminated with meth that should be disclosed,” said Sloan. “Disclosure protects all parties, if a seller is aware of contamination at the time of the sale and does not disclose it to the buyer the seller may be open to liability when the new owner discovers the contamination.”

Sloan cautioned that in the case of a repossessed home being sold by a bank the paperwork often includes a hold harmless statement including wording that the bank, having never lived in the home, can not verify the condition of the home at the time of sale.

Vicki Griffith, broker for Prudential Real Estate Tooele said she has been bitten by selling a state-certified decontaminated meth home and would not accept a listing for a home that she had reason to believe had been contaminated.

The Tooele County Health Department requires the owner of a meth-contaminated property to have the property decontaminated, but establishing contamination in the absence of a police report of meth activity requires obtaining permission from the property owner to access the property to take samples, according to Jeff Coombs, deputy director of the Tooele County Health Department.  “We had problems a few years ago with meth labs in the county,” said Coombs. “So we adopted regulations on meth lab cleanup procedures. Most of the meth labs have left the county and what we are now seeing is homes contaminated with residue from meth use.”

Beacham said she has learned some valuable lessons from this episode.  “I think it is very important for people to be aware of the possibility of meth contamination when buying a home,” said Beacham. “I wouldn't want to buy a contaminated home or put a family into a rental I own that is contaminated.”

tgillie@tooeletranscript.com

 When you decide you are ready to buy your next property, please think of me.  I would love to help guide you through the process.  Visit www.marniebeacham.com for more information.

Thank you for reading!  See you next time.

Entertainment

Did you know schnauzers are "huntin' dawgs??"

I didn't either until this past Easter morning.  Every year, when the Easter Bunny comes to our house, he loves to hide eggs for Maddie to hunt.  He hides them all throughout the house and Maddie has to go searching for them. 

This year proved to be no different than any other year, with the exception that there were LOTS and LOTS of eggs-- so many so that Maddie finally just hiked up her nightgown and made a makeshift bowl with the material in the front and started filling it up.  I was giggling because she just kept saying, "Wow, mom, he brought sooo many eggs.  I must have been really good."  ("Or E.B. just forgot which house we live in," I thought to myself.) 

Finally, the hunt seemed to wind down.  Maddie returned to the front room, where she dumped the contents of her nightgown onto the table and began inspecting her booty.  I continued to grin as I watched her shake her head in disbelief at how much candy she had just scored. 

As I sat watching Maddie, I could see out of the corner of my eye, Zoe, our mama Schnauzer, creeping slowly into the front room, with her ears pinned down—dead ringer for, "Hopefully, no one will notice that I'm feeling guilty about something I've just done."  "Mamaaa?" I asked.  Zoe stopped dead in her tracks and dropped a Hershey's chocolate egg wrapped in bright pink foil out of her mouth onto the floor and then froze.  Maddie busted out laughing, and I followed suit.  Well that must have given Zoe the 'all-clear' because she leaned down to take the egg back into her mouth.  

I jumped up, "No, no, no," and scooped up the egg before Zoe could retrieve it.  Laughing, I patted her head, and said jokingly, "Good little hunting dog." 

In the mean time, my sweet daughter decided she had so much candy, she was going to share it.  So as she set out to go to each of our neighbor's homes, I went up on my balcony, outside my room to watch as she proceeded to knock on their doors, and offer them Peeps and chocolate eggs.  As she segued from one house to the next, she reported up to me what people opted for, or when--as unbelievable as it seems, "they didn't take any!!"  Like what fool would turn down Peeps or chocolate??!!

As I'm cracking up at my daughter, the door-to-door Easter candy peddler, out walked Mama Zoe onto the balcony with another Easter egg in her mouth!  She dropped it at my feet.  This time the tin foil had teeth marks engraved in it.  So I couldn't tell if Mama Zoe was getting braver or if she simply wanted me to remove the wrapper for her.  

When Maddie finally returned home from her quest to share her treasures with the neighbors, I told her how Zoe must really be part retriever--and, again, I patted Zoe on the head, this time saying with a thick Suuthen drawwwal, "Yup! Seems we got us here a reeal huntin' dawg!"  Maddie threw back her head and laughed and mimicked me as she patted Zoe on the head, too.  Then Maddie looked at me and asked incredulously, "Where is she finding these, mom?" 

Honestly, I couldn't figure it out either, because Maddie had already spent a good part of the morning thoroughly probing the house.  I even followed her during one of her final sweeps, and being that I've been around some twenty-nine years (give or take a few),  I've seen most all of E.B.'s hiding places.  But because we were so perplexed by Zoe, we decided to peruse the house one more time.  It kind of felt like a Winnie-The-Pooh story adventure, what with Maddie, me, Mama Zoe, and Harley (I think he decided he wanted in on some chocolate action, too.) all trekking room by room, searching high and low for anymore rogue Easter eggs. 

After an intense and thorough search, we finally satisfied our minds that we’d located every egg.  So, we retired to the couch.  I was pooped.  Maddie was wired—perhaps it's plausible a plethora of Peeps caused the problem.  Maddie kept asking me about E.B. and, “How does he go to all those child’s houses in one night, mom?”  Tired of the questions, and knowing it really won’t matter what I say, I respond, “Sometimes he gets Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy to help him.” 

Silence.

Ahh, bliss.  Sometimes it pays to fabricate false truths. 

And just when I’m about to drift off to a nice Sunday nap, Maddie busts out laughing again.  I open my eyes to see Zoe with—you guessed it—another chocolate egg in her mouth!!!  And that’s the day we learned that schnauzers are true huntin’ dawgs.  I think I’m gonna ask my broker, Steve if he’ll take me on his next pheasant hunt and see how she does….

Purity

I had a fabulous opportunity last week that I would love to share with you:   

 My little Maddie dances on a special needs performance team.  Last week her dance group performed at the annual Mr. and Mrs. Amazing pageant held at Tooele High School. It truly is a euphoric experience to listen to the audience go wild when her team is announced and begins to dance!  It made me remember the first time I ever watched her perform on stage:

Years ago, when we used to live in Kamas, I took Maddie weekly to Virginia Tanner Dance Company in Salt Lake City.  It was the end of the company’s dance year and they were presenting their finale performance.  It was held at Kingsbury Hall.  I was so nervous. I remember sitting in the audience next to my mom as the music started.  The number was choreographed so that each special needs performer danced from backstage onto the floor with another dancer in the company.  I anxiously watched front stage right, where I knew Maddie would enter. 

It was crazy when I saw her dance from behind that curtain onto the stage.  I didn’t mean to; but I sputtered. Had I not already been holding my breath, I’m sure I would have gasped—it just happened to be the sound associated with the direction of my breath.  I clapped my hand to my mouth to prevent anymore audible distractions from my daughter’s debut performance.  I began to tremble. Tears filled my eyes and spilled down onto my cheeks.  My mom squeezed my leg and looked at me, as if to ask if I was going to be okay.  I shook my head, smiling, shocked at the force of my emotions. Through my tears, I watched my sweet little girl surprise me with her grace and presence in her tie-die costume, barefoot on the stage, twirling and smiling and wiggling her bum, causing the audience to erupt in laughter.  I couldn’t remember when I’d ever been more grateful and moved.

Have you ever been in a crowd of people that erupted in cheers so forcefully you tingled with chills from the crown of your head, down your spine, all the way to your core? And because of the intensity you felt, you recognized you were in the presence of something so profound and honorable?  That is what I knew when the music stopped, and I saw my daughter and her fellow dancers on stage beaming in triumph, and I listened to the audience roar their tribute to the purity we were just blessed to witness.  

Now, every time I watch her dance, I remember that moment.  It is easy to be transported back to that feeling because wherever and whenever she and her dance team members perform, they are welcomed by audiences with such overwhelming emotion.  Their performances always rock the house because they are a reminder of the pure, unpretentious expression of joy.  And now that she is a teenager, it is so fun for me to watch her personality blossom and to see a side of her that is timid and nervous before and after a performance.  I am both proud and grateful!!

I want to thank Susan Trujillo, owner of Jazz-In-It! who provides free dance lessons for special needs populations in all of Tooele County.  You are a hero.  Thank you for your dedication to these dancers and to the art of dance!

 

If you have or know of a family that has a special needs family member that would enjoy social interaction, exercise and being a "Firecracker" (as is the name of their team), call Susan at 435-882-5496. Lessons are free and held every Tuesday from 5:00-5:45pm.

Way to go "Firecrackers!!"  You light up my life. :-)

Why I write...

I am a woman. So naturally, I possess the gift of creativity.  For me, creativity is going to the heart of who I am and allowing what is there to blossom.  It is daring to be seen and heard without reverence to the rules.  It allows me to be ridiculous, candid and genuine—without judgment and with compassion.  Creativity occurs when I hold a space in my heart for that which is innocent and completely dependent upon me to allow it to safely explore new beginnings.  Creativity is about letting go of fear and intentionally offering the purity that resides deeply inside me. Creativity is knocking at my door; and I am not sure how far I want to let it in...for when I do, I have a responsibility to entertain it, to respond to it.

As a woman, one of my creative roles is to give birth. So I write to give birth to the voice inside me. I write to know my spirit's wisdom and to make sense of my life. When I take time to write, and weed through the jabber and confusion in my head, I become connected with the truth that resonates in my heart. Each time I sit at my computer and allow my fingertips to begin their dance across the keyboard, a harmonious rhythm is created—and a conversation with me is begun—one I could never have with another because they don't know all my secrets, hopes and dreams—and thus could never be as authentic as I can be with my paper.

I write because words matter.  And because in between their spaces and pauses are silences where truths can become known to us, if we listen.  I write to remember and reflect.  I write to articulate how my journey has led me to become the person I am today. I write with hope that my choosing to create and share my creation will cultivate connection, both with the Divine and with others.