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The smell of mold fills a building in Norridgewock, where two months ago hundreds of marijuana plants were seized.
Inside the insulated walls of the out building are jugs of leftover fertilizer, pots filled with soil and multiple packages of Sprite. A calendar hanging on a wall is stuck on January, with Chinese words written on various days.
The Somerset County Sheriff’s Office raided 107 Perkins St. in mid-March and seized around 350 marijuana plants. The 1,300-square-foot home was not used as the main grow area, but rather an outbuilding set away from the house. With no one around to take care of the house after the bust, the pipes froze and burst, causing severe damage, Norridgewock Town Manager Richard LaBelle said.
The federal government is cracking down on illegal marijuana grow houses across the state, raiding more than 40 properties since mid-2023. A leaked federal government memo from August said there are up to 270 large-scale illegal grows in Maine connected to Chinese organized crime, with the money being used for crime in the U.S. or being sent back to China.
In the last four months, local and federal law enforcement have raided five properties in Norridgewock alone. The sudden surge in police activity is confusing residents of the small, rural Somerset County town who feel their former neighbors, who were growing a plant legal in Maine, pose less of a threat than those trafficking more lethal drugs.
“You’ve got things like fentanyl on the streets that are right in your face that nobody’s moving on and people wonder why,” LaBelle said. “That’s just an unfortunate reality that we’ve got.”
The most recent bust in Norridgewock was May 17 on Mercer Road. More than 200 cannabis plants were seized and one man, Yibin Zhao, 55, was arrested. The first bust, on Feb. 8, saw more than 2,000 plants and 10 pounds of harvested cannabis seized from 9 Riverside Drive.
On Feb. 14, around 1,310 marijuana plants and several pounds of harvested cannabis were seized at a home at 108 Betterment Road. The ranch-style home still had jack-o-lantern decorations hanging from its front steps when a Bangor Daily News reporter saw it the week of May 26.
Police took more than 350 plants from the Perkins Street property, along with a couple harvested pounds. In another raid, police seized more than $39,000 in cash and 30 pounds of processed cannabis were taken from a house on Upper Main Street.
There is no evidence of human trafficking connected to the Maine raids, U.S. Attorney Darcie McElwee said previously. Other states have had trafficking victims stuck in horrific working conditions.
From the outside, the Norridgewock properties aren’t like some of the others that have been raided around the state. There weren’t an excess number of heat pumps attached to the homes, the grow buildings didn’t have electrical wiring running to them, and the lawns were well kept.
Most of the properties didn’t have exterior vents, which meant the smell of marijuana wasn’t prevalent in the town, LaBelle said. However, that lack of ventilation did cause serious mold issues in the buildings.
The people associated with the homes were good residents in general, whether they were illegally growing marijuana or not, LaBelle said. Neighbors told the BDN they suspected what was happening at the Perkins property but lived next to it for a year or more without any real complaints.
Cheril Storer lives around the corner from the Perkins Street property, having moved to the area about a year and a half ago. She didn’t know at the time that the nearby home harbored an alleged illegal marijuana grow, but she said she would have moved in regardless.
“They were good neighbors,” Storer said. “That’s smart of them.”
Her main issue with the grows wasn’t the marijuana itself — Storer said she grew up around marijuana and doesn’t have any problems with people using it — but the loss of taxes and income to the state by operating unlicensed.
“Who’s making the money? It’s not us,” Storer said.’
The town may be worse off now that the properties were raided and left alone, LaBelle said. Grass and weeds are a foot tall outside the homes. Food was left in the freezer of at least one home. LaBelle hopes it won’t attract wild animals.
The Perkins Street house has gone downhill in the years since its longtime owner left, neighbor Al Tompkins said. Seeing the house in disrepair after years of knowing the former owner is sad, he said.
Tompkins suspected there was illegal activity at the Perkins Street home more than a year ago, in part because of the heavy traffic he would see late at night when he couldn’t sleep. But his neighbors didn’t cause issues and were quiet.
“The folks that we’ve seen operating are not a direct threat to public safety,” LaBelle said. “I get the greater picture but I don’t believe that the people in Norridgewock are in massive danger because of these folks being here. The interactions that we’ve had are friendly. They’re compliant. They’re here registering vehicles.”
Signs posted in windows and on doors of the properties say, “Occupancy of these premises is not permitted.” They then list what issues need to be addressed before LaBelle, as acting local health officer, can OK people living there again.
There are five houses for sale in Norridgewock as of Friday, according to Zillow. The housing stock could double if the raided houses — most of which are single family starter homes — are returned to the market. Agriculture is big in the area, which means a lot of land can’t easily be developed for housing, LaBelle said.
“It’s opportunities for younger middle class Americans to be able to find homes, and they’re gone,” LaBelle said. “When you start talking about two or three homes, that makes a big impact.”’
The town is speaking with some of the owners of the raided homes, or their real estate agents, and it appears there is a desire to bring the properties into compliance to then sell, LaBelle said. There has been no movement yet.
Water and utilities to the properties are shut off, so there shouldn’t be further damage from burst pipes if the houses are still empty by winter, he said.
There’s no sign that the number of raids on suspected grow houses throughout the state will slow down soon. LaBelle believes there are additional properties in Norridgewock and surrounding communities that will be searched in the future.
“If you said, ‘Do we think we’re done?’ My answer is no.”
