David and Christine Lynn paid $398,000 for a home in rural Douglas County before discovering that the previous occupants had diverted an electrical line to avoid paying the high cost of power needed to turn the residence into a marijuana grow house.

“They called the electric company and found out the wattage for that house had been huge for the previous two years,” said Rolf von Merveldt, a lawyer who is handling the lawsuit they filed against the previous owner.

Things got worse from there. They found thousands of square feet of mold beneath rugs and drywall in the basement, and a subsequent inspection determined that walls that had absorbed the pungent smell of pot had been covered with Kilz, a primer that can block odors.

Mold in some parts of the home covered drywall from the floor to ceiling, suggesting that the moisture causing it didn’t come from outside the home, von Merveldt said.

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