When Brimfield Township resident Charles Hoskin and his new wife bought their dream home three years ago, they had no idea they were buying a nightmare.

A week after they signed the papers to become the owners, the previous owner, who hadn't moved out, was arrested by Brimfield police for operating a methamphetamine lab out of the home, Hoskin said.

Since moving in, the Hoskins have spent more than $30,000 cleaning up the toxic residue from the illegal drug lab.

``We had no idea when we purchased the house what we were getting into. We had no idea that it was a meth lab,'' Hoskin said in a news conference Friday announcing a legislative proposal meant to give home buyers and renters an effective tool to determine if a property was once the site of a meth lab.

State Rep. Stephen Dyer, D-Green, the author of the bill, said his goal is to protect the public from becoming the unwitting victim of meth labs.

``I want to stop people from moving into toxic waste dumps,'' Dyer said. ``I want to give the citizens of the 43rd District and Ohio the tools to avoid these environmental hazards whenever possible.''

Dyer's methamphetamine notification bill, which is to be introduce in the General Assembly next week, would allow people to go to a state Web site to find out whether a house, apartment or hotel room or even a vehicle has been determined by law enforcement officers to have been used a meth lab.

The bill would require a law enforcement agency that has broken up a meth lab to file a report with the state's Department of Public Safety giving the address of the property. The department would post the information on its Web site, providing the address of the house or apartment or the hotel room number or vehicle identification number.

Once the location or vehicle is cleaned according to Ohio EPA standards, it would be removed from the public safety department's Web site.

The bill also would give counties the option of including a meth lab arrest as part of a property's chain of title, which would further protect buyers from making a potentially hazardous mistake, Dyer said.

Summit County Sheriff Drew Alexander noted that his department has been aggressive in shutting down meth labs and leads the state in meth lab arrests. He called the proposed bill key to protecting the public.

``We just don't know the long-term impact of these chemicals,'' Alexander said, referring to the residue from producing methamphetamine.

Sheriff's Capt. Hylton Baker said the chemicals produced are ``caustic, explosive and cancer-causing'' and have a shelf life of 10 years.

Hoskin said he wishes the proposal had been a law three years ago when he bought his home.

``We still have another $13,000 in cleanup,'' Hoskin said.

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