Meth Lab Nightmare: Family Taking Action to Change Law

ROANOKE- A Central Illinois couple had just purchased their first home, getting ready to move in with their three-year-old son.
Then, it all came crashing to a stop.
Their new home was a meth lab.

The news hit Cally King like a ton of bricks.

"Even if you are exposed, there're nothing you can do about it, if something were to happen," explains King.

Cally's dad, Dennis Fett, bought a trailer for Cally and her family.
It was $2,500, they needed a place quick.
They bought it from the previous owner, then, went to sign their lease with Maple Grove Estates Mobile Home Park in Bloomington.

"They asked us if we'd cleaned it up and we're like, yea, just basic cleaning. And she's like no, and handed us the paper from the Illinois Department of Health."

No one told them, just months earlier, their home was used for cooking meth.

"They were cooking it in there. It's in the walls, it's in the floor. There's nothing you can do to get it out by just washing the walls," explains King. "It was advised that it were to be cleaned up by somebody who specialized in hazardours material and it would be tested before anybody lived in it. That can run into $10,000 to get it cleaned and tested."

Advised, but, King says, not required.

"That's where the looophole in the laws come in. Because it's a mobile home, you don't have to do anything about it," she explains.

That's what the courts ruled, too.
Fett took the case to McLean County.
Under Illinois law, sellers have to let buyers know if property was previously a meth lab.
The judge told Fett the law's for permanent houses, not a trailer, classified as a vehicle.

Out the money and a new home.
But Fett says that's not what this is about, he's already had two offers on the trailer.

"The trailer is not for sale. Only because I know what's gonna happen to it. Somebody's gonna buy it for rental property, whoever goes into that is probably gonna be a low income family who has kids. It's not gonna happen." Fett explains, saying the only way he'd sell is if the buyer promised to demolish the trailer.

They say they want the disclosure law changed to include mobile homes, and to keep the nightmare from happening to someone else.
They've started an online petition.
As soon as it hits 1,000 signatures, they're taking it to Springfield.
It's already at more than 800.
And Fett and his family say they're not giving up without a fight.

"This isn't over yet. We took a loss like a family, we lost our money, but we didn't lose our pride and what we've got as a family is sitkcing together and workng together and that's what we're gonna do. We're gonna try to get something changed."

To learn more about the family's efforts to change the law, click here.