A judge in Jefferson County last week barred a woman and her tenants from accessing a Lakewood house over concerns about severe methamphetamine contamination and her failure to test additional living areas for drug residue.
Jefferson County Public Health requested the restraining order close to a year after an inspector hired by Phyllis Phillips found traces of meth in the kitchen, living room, two bedrooms and elsewhere in her rental property.
“(Phillips) continues to rent out units on the property to vulnerable tenants who face grave public health consequences from methamphetamine contamination,” the department wrote in its April 3 request for the order. “Continued access to a methamphetamine-affected property creates a hazardous threat to public safety and a very real and direct threat to the health of the individuals currently residing there.”
The property near Colfax Avenue and Kipling Street is one of at least four used to accommodate clients of the nonprofit Ange De La Mer Alternative Medicine Foundation, where Phillips serves as board president and whose programs include affordable and emergency housing.
Jefferson County has also asked District Court Judge Meegan Miloud to order Phillips to pay a $100 fine and either finish cleaning up the house at her own expense or demolish it.
Phillips on Friday said the inspection and cleanup process has already cost her about $60,000, and she has been trying to pull together more money to complete the additional testing demanded by regulators.
The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment referred to a meth lab having been on the property in a letter shared with the court by the county. But Phillips said previous occupants of the house only used the drug indoors and did not manufacture it.
She also said the one person still residing at the home is squatting there without her permission.
“I’m just stuck here. I’m trying to get this done,” she said. “I have tried very hard to get everything put back to normal for my property. They act like I haven’t done a thing.”
Phillips said she first hired an inspector to test for meth residue at the property in May following a homicide. Amounts found were dozens of times higher than what would require cleanup by a licensed contractor under state law, according to court documents.
Phillips paid for the decontamination of the property. However, in January, the county wrote in a letter that more testing, and possibly more decontamination work, needed to be done before tenants could return.
The state health department wrote in March that a previously unreported bedroom and RV, both occupied, also required inspection, as did other parts of the property, since the home was found to be permitted as single-family rather than a multi-family dwelling during the cleanup process.
At least three people were said to be living on the property at the time, according to the state.
The Jefferson County Board of Health ordered the immediate testing and cleanup of the property along with the removal of tenants March 18. But the county wrote in its request for a court order that a new occupant had been reported on the property April 1.
Phillips said she plans to pay for the additional testing, though she suspects occupants were not using methamphetamine in the areas that have yet to be tested or cleaned. She also said she does not plan to rent the property as a multi-family dwelling moving forward.
“This place is putting me in debt, big time,” Phillips said.
The next hearing in the case is scheduled for Wednesday.
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