Besides the trinity of smell, sell, or tell is there any other REAL threat for a small home grow to be detected?
weird things happen. there is inherent risk just because the legality, but i would think it would be very small if you eliminate the three you posted.
those are indeed the big three. huge spikes in electricity usage is another (not just an extra couple hundred watts, but thousands of watts), or large amounts of heat (again, only if you've got thousands of watts of light going). the only one of considerable importance that you'll have little control over is someone randomly stumbling upon it, like a TV repair man, plumber, fire inspector, or anyone who for whatever reason had to come into your home to check on something. for the most part though this is unlikely unless you're not thinking straight.
If you keep your business to yourself and elimanate the smell you should be fine. The less anyone knows the better. It's kind of hard because once you get going you will want to show and tell friends your accomplishments but you will have to keep it to yourself and show them the finally product.
My biggest concern right now is noise. Cooling HID bulbs takes a lot of air movement. The noise from my inline fans leads to questions from anyone who might hear it. I try and place the fans away from the grow room, so I can blame it on other stuff.
you can try to put some dynamat around the grow area to drown out the HID hum... line the walls and cover em with mylar or your grow tent.
Ok this is a hi-tech answer only a guy into hotrods would come up with. Dude, I would love to line my grow room and attic with Dynamat. And I know it would work great for removing all fan noise. Come on... You would have to be one rich mofo to afford that. Why can you get a good deal on that stuff? Your bro owns Dynamat? If so, hook me up my brotha.
Really its the shit ya don't think of that'll get ya. Friend causing a fight and the cops getting called. Had the city tax dude stop 1ce to check for upgrades so he could raise my property taxes. Tree falls into your yard snapping a ele line that travels across your airspace (yes in some states you own the air above your yard) and fries some wiring in your house which causes an inspection. Or house gets broken into friendly neighbor sees perp calls it in and LEO lets himself in to catch perp and then waits on you to get home. Really all we can do is the best we can. Are we protecting ourselves or our familes? I say familes. And the only full proof way is to stop growing. If I got popped right now in the small town i'm in the story would read like this "House in west end found to have 6 MJ plants each producing a pound(seedlings) of MJ each. Also found large weapon stash (all purchased lawfuly) ammo (again lawfully) and cash (50.00)" FILM at a 11! Result DA re-elected and my ass spending time with Big Bubba the Butt Bandit! And yes it does sux we can't show our handy growing skills to friends. This is much harder than I thought and for me the 1 thing I have the most trouble with. For any NOOB here read the following... KEEP YOUR PIE HOLE SHUT... And pray the un-foreseen don't reach up and nibble at your ass. Each grower doesn't protect just himself but all of us. The more that LEO learns about our growing the more they will look for us. The more we get busted then LEO will start to think that more of us are growing than what LEO thought there were and start looking harder. Keep to yourself. And never be rude to any person for any reason on your block. Never give any one any reason to thingk your anything but a normal broke working stiff. take the chairs off your front porch and lower your blinds at night. And remember Big Bubba don't like Dinggle-Berries
- Light leaks - Noise from fans/pumps - Stealing electricity - Grossly excessive electrical use - Grossly excessive heat exhaust - Strange activities (tending to the plants) - Nosy/wandering cohabitants (parents, roommates, children)