So, I was wondering if it was possible to find out info on deaths in the house and came across a lot of news article pointing to this paid website.
In CA, this is a mandatory disclosure. Not so in other states. So does anyone here know of free public resources to find this info?
So no one here knows of free online resources to check deaths in house, meth lab busts etc?
Meth lab is more concerning to me. This may be the list:
Thanks Terri
What happens if you rent your home and tenant sets up meth lab? Is there any way to avoid this suituation? Do you have any recourse if this happens? Will your insurance cover this situation? Can you require tenants to have insurance coverage for this scenario?
Those are some seriously good questions. I doubt you’ll hear anything except good tenant vetting. I know that’s not your question
In CA when you are selling property, you have to disclose if it had a meth lab in it. This is a recent law, introduced maybe 2-3 years ago. Title company probably has to do their due diligence when they research title. I do not know if you have to disclose same information to your tenants.
I believe death should be disclosed to buyers if it happened in the last 2 years, not sure if it has to be disclosed to tenants.
interestingly - if you cross check this DEA list with redfin, it will not list neither death nor past meth lab on their listing. For example this house in Belmont had meth lab in 2006 according to this DEA site:
where were you expecting this info on Redfin listing? Typically, such info is found on disclosures and Redfin doesn’t post disclosures on listings.
I think it is redfin business decision not to publish this information. Otherwise they can include it under “Public records” section.
Zillow has similar section called “Data sources” but they also do not include this information.
The public records on Redfin is basically the county records for the property. But yes, if they want, they can add a separate section that shows this info.
Death? That’s a common thing, we all die one day. Murder or any other crime is something you kind of could be worried about. For that, I believe you can go to the police department and ask them to run a check on a certain address. I was going to do it for the house that gave us many headaches in our hood, but I decided it wasn’t worth my time nor money.
Physically going to a police station is neither practical nor scalable hence the question if an online resource for such a search exists.
Again, go online and find out. That’s why these departments have a phone number to call or a link to this and that 
I will be checking police reports before purchase from now on…In my apartment building in Tahoe one tenant had several noise police reports filed against him… .I used those reports to evict him…Made my building more attractive and valuable. .Of course the seller never mentioned the police reports…
Why do you think I asked this question here? Precisely because I couldn’t find an online resources except the paid website I mentioned above. If you know of an online resources for this research, do share.
If you go to the local department they have a file and will make a copy. .You can also go online to the local county court and review civil and criminal records of individuals. .
Are you able to also search for court and criminal records by address since in case of a property, esp if it was a rental, we wouldn’t know which person(s) to search for?
Get the rent roll…to check tenants
•Request Copies of Crime Reports
You can give them a call. I’ve done that to find out info on a neighbor’s house. Turned out the guy who called me back had been inside the house. Drug house. Got a lot of good info that way.