(NEWSCHANNEL 3) - It could be happening right next door, and you might never realize it.

Methamphetamine use is a problem we've been dealing with for years now, but the bigger problem may be meth labs. New methods allow meth labs to pop up anywhere and disappear overnight, and what gets left behind is a major health hazard.

The problem of meth continues to grow, and those who cook meth are finding new, easier and faster ways to make the drug. It can now be made in a half-hour, in a hotel room, or a garage, or even in a car, it may have even been made in your home.

The Kalamazoo Valley Enforcement Team raids homes roughly 250 times a year, more often than not, they're looking for meth.

One West Michigan home was raided in the spring and the costs have been mounting ever since.

"Cleaning supplies, time, energy, paint, everything," said the owner, speaking of the troubles he's had.

The owner of the home, who asked to remain anonymous, inherited his home from family, but in the spring someone who lived there began cooking meth, and got busted. Now the house is condemned until the owner cleans up the mess.

Asked if he'd done anything to the walls, the home-owner replied that he'd "washed them, put one coat of paint on. We're trying to paint multiple times so we don't have to get it tested more than once."

Many across the state have and do live in former meth-labs without even knowing it, and it's their health that suffers.

It's a problem that Christine Rogers tries to prevent, at least in Kalamazoo County, as the Kalamazoo County Methamphetamine Health Response Coordinator, she's doing for that home-owner what she's done more than 200 times since 2006, helping to make the home safe to live in.

"Mobile home trailers, apartments, sheds, poll barns, garages, all kinds of dwelling types that we've had to deal with," Rogers said.

The first thing Rogers does is enlist private consultants, at the owners expense, to determine the extent of the contamination.

Tom Boecher has been sniffing out what meth cookers leave behind for years.

"We would be looking for stains on the carpet," Boecher, from Delisle Associates Environmental Health & Safety said. "We would be looking for anything that would resemble methamphetamine precursors or processed chemicals that are still left in the house."

In the house we went to, most of the cooking was done in a bedroom and the attached bathroom.

"Bathrooms are always key because if they normally cook, for every pound of product, five to six pounds of waste are created," Boecher said.

And the disposal of the toxic concoction almost always leaves a trail.

"If it's chrome, acids will actually eat that away, it will look yellow or even green," said Boecher, "it doesn't look like it should."

But the dangerous residue from meth production can travel far beyond the room it's cooked in.

"Most remedial programs will say any flooring, any fabric, anything that could absorb this stuff, get it out," said Boecher.

The home-owner we spoke to already had to tear out the carpet, counter tops and cabinets as well as appliances and even furniture. He'd already been at work for six months and redecorating isn't even on the horizon yet.

"Between me and the other person doing it," the home-owner said, "countless hours. Right now we want to get the house so the condemned signs can come off of it."

If you're not a do-it-yourself sort of person, hiring a contractor for the clean-up can easily cost $4,000, which will not cover the cost of testing. It sounds like a lot, but it's better than the alternative.

"There have been respiratory ailments, skin lesions, associated with just contamination in a house," said Christine Rogers.

Unfortunately many meth labs are never busted, and even if they are, Kalamazoo is the only county in Michigan that requires meth labs to be cleaned up, so you could be living in a meth lab and never know it, but there are ways to find out.

"You could get somebody to possibly do a test for about $150," Rogers said.

We asked Rogers if that sort of test would be included in a typical home inspection.

"No," she said. "You would have to hire an environmental consultant."

Folks who are not getting their homes tested should watch out for the warning signs; chemical stains on the walls and floors, corroded drains, even chemical smells and smoke damage is a red flag, and could help you avoid footing the bill for the past sins of others.

"Cooking meth is a lot more expensive than a little bit of jail time," said the home-owner we spoke to.

If you think it's possible that meth has been cooked in your home, you can go to the Kalamazoo County Department of Health's website by clicking here, or the Michigan Department of Community Health's website by clicking here, you can also contact Christine Rogers, the Kalamazoo County Health Methamphetamine Response Coordinator at 269-720-3442.