Embrace your inner Walter White by buying this San Jose home with ‘inactive’ meth lab
Home prices in California, especially those in Silicon Valley, may be making prospective buyers desperate, but one home for sale in San Jose would test even the most accommodating buyer.
It comes with meth contamination and was once used, police say, for storing bomb-making materials.
The 2,743-square-foot, six-bedroom home on Potomac Court has an attached garage as well as an “inactive meth lab and meth contamination,” according to its listing at Keller Williams Realty-Silicon Valley. And what’s more, it’s being sold as is.
The home’s asking price is $1.55 million — a relative bargain for a house of its size. Four-bedroom homes in the area are listed at around the same price.
“Home has not been cleared of contamination and will be transferred to the new buyer in its current state,” the listing says.
Under California law, property owners are required to disclose potential hazards — methamphetamine contamination included — to potential buyers or tenants.
The Keller Williams agent did not respond to a request for comment.
FAA regulations and reliance on “self-reporting” create a culture in which pilots bottle up their problems instead of reporting them and seeking help, advocates say.
A “Breaking Bad” vibe isn’t all you can get with this San Jose home.
In addition to its former use as a meth lab, the home was allegedly used to stockpile weapons and build explosives used in the destruction of several Pacific Gas & Electric transformers in 2022 and 2023.
Previous owner Peter Karasev, 35, was arrested in March on suspicion of blowing up the transformers after an investigation by San Jose police.
In security footage shared by the San Jose Police Department, a man can be seen planting a device near a transformer, which then explodes as the person rides away on a bicycle.
Karasev was arrested at his workplace, but over the course of four days, investigators searched the Potomac Court home — evacuating neighboring homes to do so — and found homemade explosives and a number of firearms including rifles and handguns and “a large quantity of hazardous materials,” San Jose Police Assistant Chief Paul Joseph said in a news conference in March.
A “homemade liquid explosive, multiple energetic homemade destructive devices” and what police identified as a pipe bomb were seized at the home.
Karasev lived there with his wife and three young children, police said.
Karasev was charged by the Santa Clara County district attorney’s office with possession of a destructive device, igniting a destructive device and child endangerment, among other charges.
The Mercury News on Tuesday reported that Karasev also faces a federal indictment.
Time will tell whether the history of the home, as well as the needed meth cleanup, will be a factor in its selling price or time on the market.
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