how do the police bust hydroponic grows ?

[melbournes/eboy]

oh, i almos forgot. your spending habits are another thing to take care with. i think if you spend over 10k, the tax department is notified. if you spend more than you can possibly be earning from a job paying tax, you will hear from the tax office because they will think you are ripping them off. more than likely they will involve the police if they suspect. at that point you become a big enough fish for the police to catch, a) you are making enough money to be connected to something more sinister than growing, and you have been caught breaking the law from your growing at this point anyway, by tax evasion.

 

it all comes down to common sense in the end i think. you have to be reasonably smart about it, but not to the point of constant paranoia. hope it helps anyway....

[mullray]

main one is never tell anyone

 

regard the electricty bill i don't think it should make a big difference. I remember reading on another forum they compared computer Watts with growing lights. A computer power supply is 500watts and a household has more then one computer.

 

Hope that helps

 

Yeah but a computer runs at 12 volts and uses almost no electricity, whereas a grow light uses 600watts (or 400 or 1000etc) in real terms. Someone is very confused about power use and bills.

[HighRising]

People have all kinds of 'legit' reasons to use a lot of power - pool pumps, machinery, heating, etc. Lots of people use hydro for non-illegal plants too.

If you're paying for it you've nothing to worry about on that front. Maybe if you were running 50 1000 watters and had the whole house churning they might notice, but for normal people, no drama

[RobbieGanjaSeed]

I bred native fish for years and the power a house full of fish tanks draws leaves grow lights for dead. Every winter would see my electricity bill around 700-1000 dollars depending how many tanks I was running. that was avergaing around 30 tanks.

I've been in a couple fish keeping clubs and I was light-weight, with people having sheds built and filled with more tanks than you can imagine, with electricity bills topping thousands. These aren't registered businesses, mn\any are simply professional types with a bent on fish, some make enough from breeding to cover the cost of their hobbies, but never, in all those years did one, not one person get a visit from anyone about their elctricity that I know of. I certainly never had any concerns.

But I do know of a story which is pretty reliable of a guy who was reported for ecessive electricity in Kingaroy and got busted around 12 years ago. That was the electricity meter reader in a town that seems built for nosey dobbers. He was in a aflat, the meter reader thought the amount of juice he used was too high and did his own cop thing and went to the police. But we're talking about a place that when you pick ya mail up, the postie will tell you what you have from who. Small town shit, red necks....

 

Most risk on my mind is simply how many people know ya growing. Like WDC said, family or freinds dob ya when they gets the shits, but it can come undone easier than that. in fact you could GIVE away dope to every person you knew, and it'd be the smae risk, 'cause then the talk would be driven by what great deals someone's getting or whatever. Talk, it's the number one killer.

 

As for how serious the cops will take complains if ya dobbed, that varries completely on what time in history you're at, and where you live. I've lived in Nth NSW and the cops get sick of people reporting a few plants here and there, contrast to qld, where a wisper to the cops will have the dog squad around in 12 hours.

 

Need to know is the phrase. Tell no-one that does not need (and really weigh up if they need) to know.

 

do that and you'll be sweet. Well, sweet as in there's risk in anything that's dsignated criminal of course.

 

cheers

rob

 

pS> I haven't seen one for years but if you search on google, and you know what you pay per kilowatt hour or what they call it, in your area. You can calculate nearly tothe very dollar what you'll see your bill rise by. It's simple calculations you can do with ya computer calculator and the scale. Anyone got a link?