Anyone growing in a rental apartment?

carbon filters. Get one big enough for your light, your carbon filter should have a higher air flow rating than your actual fan/blower.

Stealth and concealment are the key. Most rentals require a 24 hour notice to enter premises. They can then look,explore, check out any part of the apt for any reason. They cannot however search your personal effects. This includes furniture or any storage device on the premises, so your safest bet is to invest in some kind of self contained grow tent or converted dresser, storage closet etc (provided it is not attached/property of the rental).

Lastly, know the risk of what you are doing. Marijuana Law Reform - NORML

 

LOL that cracks me up im in an apartment and the maintancence guys came to clean the carpet a day early then scheduled. my grow is in my closet so they got a little sneak peak at what i was doing. but there mexicans and have alot better things to do than snitch me out to the white colar managers.. you will definitely have some thinking to do

 

Keep it stealth. Even though you are supposed to get 24 hours they can come in any time in an emergency. (Pipe burst, Gas leak, etc)

Also think about where your cabinet is make sure its not on a wall connected to the bathroom in case this does happen.

As far as odor def do the carbon filter but also get some glade plugins and put them around and or consider an odor bucket (search for it on here)


DOT

 

generally maintenenace crews stick to the kitchen, bathroom, and water heater/AC areas. why would they come into your room to repair anything?

if you keep everything self contained and smell proofed in a closet in your bedroom, there is no reason for maintenance to find it unless they are snooping in your room. so keep your door shut.

grow tents and carbon filters are your friend.

 

Portable microgrows are good for rentals. You want to be able to unplug things and move it at a moments notice...

-Loki

 

thats pretty cool looking loki. high tech with that computer screen thing. but id question how much you can grow with just LEDs. ive seen people do grows like that with cfls though. decent results.

im in an apartment/condo type deal. check out what im doing in my sig. most landlords do not do routine maintenance. most are cheap and dont fix what isnt broken, so they will only enter your apartment if you tell them something needs fixing. or if there is some freak occurrence like your grow op sets the apartment on fire. i wouldnt grow in an apartment until i had lived there for at least a year and knew the landlord very well. then you will know if there are going to be unwanted visits or not

i would definitely do something self-contained. like others have said, in most states a landlord is prohibited from opening up safes or locked storage devices inside the apt. there are plenty of cases about that issue. a grow tent is good if you have the $$ (sold online). much easier to manage smell, light proof, and you can take the tent down at moments notice. of course then you have to do something with the plant... put in forest, at friends house, or something.

the best option IMO would be to turn a dresser into a stealth grow cab. then, even if the landlord goes poking around there is no way she/he is going to try to open up the drawers of your dresser (or is it a dresser?). there are many examples on this site. hope this helps

 

I live and grow in an apt. I have a bigass tent in my spare bedroom closet. Maintenance does a twice a year inspection only under the sinks for leaks and to change the air filter for the ac. They always give us 48hr notice and I make sure I am always here when they come. Carbon filters are necessity and I like to cook and use air fresheners to help with my paranoia.

 

Oh man, I have a bad story about someone growing in a rental.

So this dude I know, was growing on a hydroponic setup in his apartment right? Well, the shit breaks, I don't know the details. Anyway, water just starts POURING into the unit below him. I guess it was like waterfall style shit.

I gotta say though, dude was fucking brilliant about how he handled it. He noticed it before anybody really got involved, so he runs out real quick and gets himself a used waterbed. Sets that shit up, punctures it with a nail. Completely clears out his apartment of everything.

Totally got off, the staff bought it all.

 

do you know anyone that owns a house ?
you could snatch them up a deal and grow large
that way , you get away with it and your mate reeks the benefits aswell as yourself
do a 70%-30% deal with the intentions of making 100k+ a year
you pay for there rental house with the money your already paying rent for

 

I'd get anywhere from 15-25g per tote depending on the strain. LEDs put out so little heat that you have to have the totes somewhere warm. When the room those totes were in was kept in the low 70s, the plants barely grew. I insulated the closet and put a tiny space heater in there to bring it up to mid 80s and I had tiny jungles...

-Loki

 

Actually man I was reading through jorge cervantes indoor horticulture book and it say specifically to in fact grow in a rental nothing u own.... I grow in a place I rent and will never grow in a place that could be taken from me by the 5-0

 

do this if you want to get busted or have your weed stolen

cervantes is the father of modern mj horticulture, but he is no guide to the law. if you live in a house that you own then it cannot just be taken from you by a court because you grow in it. they can only take it to pay fines if you have no other money. they could also take it if you were not living in it, but only using it as a "business operation." like stricklyHYDRO suggested.

 

do you really think you can grow and distribute 20 lbs per year without getting caught? good luck with that one.

i think you are high.

personal property, houses, cars, anything can be taken by police. All they have to do is prove that you bought or procured the items through criminal means, like growing weed.

 

Apartment growers take a big risk, much bigger than most of them realize. The fact that they haven't gotten caught yet does not mean they are running a secure operation, any more than driving without a seatbelt and not killing yourself yet means that driving without a seatbelt is safe.

Your landlord can enter your apartment without notice. I know it says in the lease they have to give notice, and most of the time they do, but they also reserve the right to enter without notice if in their sole judgment it is necessary/emergency. Your privacy rights are not secure because they have to be balanced against the landlord's right to keep his property safe and secure. So, even if you have done everything you can think of to keep your grow hidden, if the apartment above you overflows their tub and it starts leaking through your ceiling (or a pipe in the wall bursts, or there is a bad cockroach infestation, or...) then the landlord can enter without notice.

Without even realizing it, you might even have given up-front permission in the lease for entrance without notice by maintenance workers, pest control, the utility and cable companies, HVAC repairmen, and so on.

And even if you get 24 hours notice, where are you going to put your grow op? We see posts on this forum all the time from panicked apartment growers who did get notice but still have no place to hide their grow.

Other problems with apartment grows: your living space is smaller so it's harder to hide a grow op's electrical consumption (using an extra 250 kilowatt hours or more of juice can blend into the bill for a 3,000 sq foot house a lot easier than it can blend into the bill for a 1,000 sq foot apartment). Your neighbors are a lot closer, so odor control must be perfect. You often have other apartments below, above, and/or to the sides of you, limiting your options for ventilation. With an apartment you are less likely to want to cut holes in walls and ceilings. Apartments often mean roommates. I could go on...

Are you kidding? Dude, you are compromised as hell. All it takes is for one of those workers to be in any trouble with the law (pretty good odds of that, right?) and they will roll over on you without hesitation if they think it will let them off easy. If I were you I would stay home from work today hauling my plants to the dumpster and boxing up all my grow equipment.

 

Shit, toastybiz - you're right.

But say that you set up a dresser, grow inside it and lock the dresser up, no one would be able to notice if you hide the smell. All one needs to do is be prepared to lock the dresser while it's open for watering/observing/etc in case the landlord or such comes in.

 

guys if you are not a competent lawyer, dont give legal advice. and even if you guys are lawyers, then youre bad ones because you dont know the law correctly at all.

what your talking about is tax evasion. and for that yes they will take anything you bought with money that was acquired without paying taxes. but if you are just growing a couple of plants for personal smoke, you will never come under the radar of IRS.

i have represented nearly 150 clients for possession with intent to sell, possession after just buying, or manufacturing in a house. about half of them were in a car or their house then they were arrested, and not one had their house or car taken by a court of law. thats because a judge does not have the authority to make up punishment as he wishes. there are set punishment codified by law. for almost all marijuana convictions, a judge is limited to fining the defendant in an amount prescribed by law, and jail time. thats it thats all. now if you cannot pay the fine, but you have a nice big house or other assests like a car, then the court can force you to sell those assets in order to pay the fine. also, if the court finds it proper they can substitute jail time for probation as state law allows.

the only things police can take (w/o a court order, during arrest) are illegal contraband, or contraband used for illegal activities. this means scales, baggies, lights, fans, your grow cabinet. if you have no one to take your car home and you are arrested while driving it, they will impound it. but you still own it. you just have to pay the fee.

there is one exception to a court's inability to take your house for growing in it. a court can come to the conclusion that you are using a house as a "business operation" and not as a home. this is most common when the grower is indeed not living in the house but only growing there. i researched this a bit more, (ive never had a case where a court tried to do this, but ive never represented a grower with more than 6 plants) and it appears there are a few cases where a court has taken a house when the grower did live in the house. in those cases it came down to the fact that there were so many plants (75 in one case i looked at; 100 in another) that even if you lived there, a court will consider it a manufacturing operation, and can take the home. in lay terms, they are basically saying you were not living at your home you were living at your work.

whew, now thats a crash course in criminal law. lets move on to contract law and landlord-tenant law shall we?

a landlord cannot enter your apartment without notice at any time. they can only do so when there is an emergency or a presumed emergency. which of course could happen at any time, but the way you say it is unnecessarily misleading. you might scare the noobs away. and a bad cockroach infestation is not an emergency like you say. plus they would have to give you notice there because they are going to spray insecticides inside your house. think about it, you have to move your pets out an take your plants and cookware out. they dont just come and spray, and if they did you would have a good lawsuit against them

you mentioned being bound by a contract you signed saying that you waive your right to notice of inspection. a court would never uphold such a contract. it would be void for unconscionability. that is, a court would say that no one in their right mind would sign a contract that is so one sided and unfair, therefore it is void. this is even easier to establish in the case of a rental agreement, because they are contracts of adhesion (meaning its a "take it or leave it" contract; no negotiation), and they are held to a high standard of conscionability.

the practical problems you mention (smell, close to neighbors) are valid stuff though. and any new grower should consider them.

i am not saying that growing inside an apartment is safe, or that you cannot be caught. make sure you take the proper precautions. i am only trying to dispel misinformation. and if you dont believe me, go get a lawyer or call NORML

 

This is not accurate. You are trying to describe a perfect world where every landlord knows every intricacy of the law and follows them.

example...

A local case happened about 2 months ago where a landlord knocked on his rental property door he owned to change to a new water meter. He did not give notice, he simply showed up with the new meter. The tenants would not let him enter the house and asked him to come back in 48 hours. The landlord left the house and went straight to the police, who had a warrant within hours.

They found 140 plants in the upstairs of the house.

Thinking that you can keep your landlord out, let alone keep them out without suspicion is pretty naive if you ask me.

 

i described the law of the US. you, and many other people, just do not understand how the laws works. the law does not speak for itself, you are not surrounded by a force field of "law" that just protects you without any effort of your own. if someone tries to assault you, the law does not swoop down and stop their fist. it gives you the right to defend yourself, and punch back. if you let the assailant punch you, that is your own damn fault for not using the law to your advantage. if you are pulled over by a cop, and they ask if they can search your car, the law gives you the right to say "hell no," but it cannot say it for you. it is always up to an individual to stand up for his own rights. if you dont stand up for yourself, someone else will come along and violate your rights. just like the landlord and the judge who gave the warrant violated that tenant's rights.

if the person you are describing had a contract that said the LL cannot enter the tenants rental w/o notice, except for emergencies, then that tenant had a contractual right which is protected by law. if that tenant followed the LL to the judge who issued the warrant and made his case by presenting the contract, then the judge would not have given the warrant. at least that is how the law would apply to the facts that you gave me

knowing how to use the the law to your advantage is not naive. its power.

p.s. grrower, im sorry i had to tear your interpretation of the law a new asshole , because i respect what you can do with growing MJ. no hard feelings . i probably take this stuff a bit too seriously. but i hear too many stories of people getting fucked for no reason like in your story.

 

Yes, I grow in an apartment.

But, I am squeaky clean legal. For me, all it means if I'm caught is an extra deposit, eviction from a shitty apartment, or the very very slim chance of my plants cut and lights smashed.

If you run an illegal op in an apartment, then you have something wrong with you. Not so much a deathwish, as a prisonwish, lol.