entanyl and methamphetamine are dangerous drugs, even for people who never touch the stuff. A synthetic form of morphine, fentanyl is extremely potent, to the extent that casual contact with trace amounts can cause a medical crisis. It’s mostly “cooked” in laboratories in Mexico, according to the US Drug Enforcement Administration, whereas meth could be and has been made in a variety of places, including Alaska.
As use of those drugs has grown in the past few years, it’s increased contamination in homes, apartments, and vehicles. That has contributed to growing demand for the small number of Alaska businesses that provide testing and remediation for drug contamination.
Griffin Forster, the Association of Alaska Housing Authorities’ executive director, says the issue shapes his organization’s work. ‶It’s enough of a problem that we… have a regular training on meth remediation and contamination—generally once a year,ʺ he says. ‶It is a problem that a lot of folks in the housing management space contend with.”
“Testing numbers keep increasing every year,” says Patrick Hartshorn, owner and senior environmental consultant at Advance Look Building Inspections and Environmental Testing. Since 2016, the farthest back he could get data from the lab he uses, Hartshorn has tested 123 buildings and 47 vehicles. As of mid-July, he’d already tested 16 structures and 9 cars in 2026. If that pace continues, he estimates he’ll test about 30 buildings and 18 cars this year—double and triple his average workload.
For 2024, the most recent year available in the CDC’s reporting system, Alaska had almost twice as many overdose deaths per 100,000 residents as the national rate (which excludes California, Florida, and Texas). At the same time, deaths from fentanyl occurred in Alaska at a higher rate compared to the overall rate (75.4 vs. 65.1 percent), and more of those who died (82.8 percent of Alaskans vs. 72.9 percent overall) had “at least one potential opportunity for intervention.”
Another measure of drug use comes from the US Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). For 2024, the most recent year for which it has published data, SAMHSA estimates that 3.56 percent of Alaskans aged 12 or older used an illicit drug in the past month; this figure excludes marijuana-only users.
Drawing on several years’ worth of SAMHSA data, a December 2025 paper in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene estimates that Alaska had 17,447 housing units needing cleanup from meth contamination in 2022. The paper’s author, James E. Dennison, further estimates that this contamination could affect nearly 40,000 Alaskans and cost $770 million to clean up. The paper does not address vehicle contamination nor estimate home contamination due to fentanyl use.
Worker headaches caused Bristol Bay Housing Authority (BBHA) to start testing its apartments for drug contamination around 2018, says former executive director Kevin Tennyson. “At one time, we had at least forty to fifty units that were contaminated above the state norm,” Tennyson says, representing nearly half of the authority’s housing stock.
BBHA now tests all units upon move in and move out, says Tennyson, and he estimates they remediate one or two apartments a year.
Hartshorn’s tests routinely show levels of drug contamination that exceed acceptable levels. And they almost never involve cases in which Alaska law requires cleanup to render the cars or buildings safe for use.
Advance Look has tested only a tiny fraction of structures affected. Few other companies provide the same service, a fact that may partly relate to Alaska’s limited laws on the issue.
Evonne Reese, an environmental program specialist with DEC’s Contaminated Sites Program, says the associated guidance and standards adopted into regulation only cover meth production, not fentanyl. The law itself refers only to “controlled substance[s].” Reese also confirms, “The statute is based on the reason for contamination,” not the level thereof. Austin McDaniel, a spokesperson for the Alaska State Troopers, says the agency hasn’t come across a meth lab “anywhere in Alaska in several years.”
Rules for classifying a property as a meth lab define contamination of 0.1 mg of meth per 100 square centimeters. However, Alaska Statutes 46.03.500 through 46.03.599 limit the cleanup requirements to structures like homes or physical properties. They do not cover possible manufacture in—and therefore contamination of—other places, even though the DEC web page “Illegal Drug Manufacturing Sites” states, “Small labs can easily be located in homes, motels, boats, or even in the back of a car.”
Federal OSHA standards for worker safety offer some protection for workers who might encounter drug contamination. For example, a maintenance employee who cleans an apartment after the eviction of a tenant with known or suspected drug use. Or a car detailer who works on a stolen vehicle the owner recovered. Law enforcement and other first responders also face risks. In all those cases, OSHA law applies to any hazards encountered, like the source of headaches that BBHA employees kept getting.
William “Dale” Williamson, chief of enforcement for Alaska Occupational Safety and Health, says OSHA standard 1910.1030 Bloodborne Pathogens applies when either contaminated sharps or visible blood are present. “If either of these is present, an Exposure Control Plan must be developed and implemented, workers must be trained, and the plan must be followed,” he says.
Through her previous role as board chair for the Interior Regional Housing Authority, she’s discussed the issue with other housing authorities. “We’ve all talked about ‘How do we recover that cost,’ [but] the probability is very low,” she says. “It’s just a cost of doing business these days and trying to keep families healthy.”
When BBHA first started remediating apartments, it hired a private contractor, which cost around $100,000, MacDonald says. The authority has since trained employees to do the cleaning, which has reduced the cost somewhat.
Several cleanup guides or public health resources from various states and the US Environmental Protection Agency stress the particular vulnerability of children exposed to drug contamination—especially those still crawling on floors or at the stage where they put everything in their mouths.
“Children [are] the primary focus,” of protective measures, Hartshorn says. “It’s to protect the kids cause they’re the innocent ones.” Toward that end, he’s provided training and educational sessions for hundreds of people in industries that might deal with drug contamination, such as real estate agents and homeowner groups. He’s also pushed the state to align its standards with the industry’s.
Under an administrative review that Governor Mike Dunleavy ordered, the state is considering changes to the meth lab statute that could involve adopting part of the industry standard. If the state does adopt the standard, Reese says, “It would only apply to the properties included in the Illegal Drug Manufacturing Sites program.” The state expects to announce final changes in 2027, she says.
With structures like a home, remediation involves several steps, Hartshorn says. After the initial testing, the third-party consultant determines the level of contamination. Based on that information, the consultant creates a “scope of work” that includes relevant industry standards, “any professional opinion recommendations above and beyond,” as well as a detailed plan for what to clean and how and what to destroy.
Plan in hand, an owner ideally then seeks bids for the job and has the third-party consultant review them. Hartshorn says he sees lots of bids that just give a number and no details of what a company proposes to do. As a third-party consultant, he wants to see specifics of how a cleanup company will do the work.
Once the homeowner chooses a vendor, remediation starts. The process involves both specialized cleaning and heating the house to around 90°F, Hartshorn says, to draw contaminants to the surface. The number of days devoted to cleaning and heating depends on the level of contamination: maybe three days for lower levels, four to seven for higher.
“The hardest thing with most all of these projects I get involved with… is convincing people that their personal belongings need to be dealt with” Hartshorn says. “I’ve seen beautiful kitchens get taken out and completely thrown in the dump” because of what the wood absorbs.
The Environmental Protection Agency’s 2021 set of “Voluntary Guidelines for Methamphetamine and Fentanyl Laboratory Cleanup” provides detailed guidance for cleaning different types of household items, from windows to switch plate covers and toys. The section repeatedly calls for disposal of items “in a manner that prevents reuse.”
Sometimes homeowners don’t learn of contamination until they’ve moved all their belongings into a newly purchased house, thus contaminating all those possessions. “Anything that’s been touching the surfaces, it’s now been considered contaminated,” Hartshorn says.
Hartshorn says “a large portion of our projects that we do… are because people buy a house, and they move in, and what’s the first thing? The neighbor always comes over, ‘Oh, you bought the drug house.’”
The issue isn’t limited to specific areas or demographics. “I have tested megamillion houses on the Hillside,” Hartshorn says. “It’s everywhere.” Early in his career, Hartshorn worked as a DEA-certified drug investigator with the Wrangell Police Department. “The people who are truly consuming have money,” he says.
Once the cleaning vendor completes work, the third-party consultant does a visual review of the work to confirm it followed the plan. If everything looks good, the consultant retests the structure. If all tests show acceptable levels, the consultant writes a clearance letter showing the home is legally “fit for use.”
Jacob Thompson, owner of Anchorage-based Alpenglow Auto Detail, says “many detailers turn down recovered vehicles just because of liability issues.”
Prior to launching his own business, Thompson worked for several shops around town. “When we get a phone call asking to get a stolen vehicle that was recovered detailed, that does usually mean it will have something hazardous in the vehicle,” he says. “If not careful, [we] could either hurt an employee or, if we miss something, hurt a client… It’s not worth the insurance issues to take those vehicles sometimes.”
Both Thompson and Valiant Detailing owner Jacob Waddell Brown say most recovered stolen cars show signs of drug use. Anecdotally, Alaska State Troopers see a similar pattern, but they don’t keep statistics tracking it. “Many times when vehicles are recovered, there’s drug paraphernalia,” McDaniel says. “That’s definitely something that we see across the state.”
Brent Olsen, owner of Northern Lights Detailing, says his company sees about five recovered vehicles a week, during summer months. “Many of these vehicles are in extremely poor condition when they’re recovered,” he says. Olsen says they usually evaluate a vehicle with suspected drug contamination first and decide whether to test and how to approach the job. “Testing is particularly important because you can’t reliably determine the presence or absence of a hazardous substance simply by looking at a vehicle,” he says.
Both Olsen and Hartshorn say cleaning a contaminated vehicle is complicated and expensive. Earlier this year, Hartshorn tested a brand-new truck—likely worth about $80,000—that was declared a total loss because the cleaning and interior replacement would’ve cost $45,000.
“Cleaning meth out of a car is extremely difficult,” Hartshorn says. First, drug use in cars results in higher contamination levels than in a home because of the confined space. Second, cars are usually upholstered in material that must be replaced rather than remediated. Third, it’s extremely difficult to clean the airflow system and every surface that powder or chemical compounds reached.
Reese says the list was last updated two years ago. “The businesses [listed] provide the details to include on the website,” she says. “There is no state verification process.”
Hartshorn says someone seeking to hire a cleaner should look for OSHA hazardous waste certification. Ideally the cleaner would also have training in decontamination procedures and exposure control.
When it comes to buying a property, Signature Real Estate Alaska agent Carolyn DeYoung says prospective buyers should always visit during the day and night before committing to a purchase. “That’s a must,” she says. “It’s amazing what a neighborhood may or may not do at night” that’s not evident by day.
Buyers or renters might also consider testing a home before move-in. “There’s no way to know if someone’s been utilizing meth in a home,” MacDonald says. “There’s no way to know if someone’s been utilizing meth in a hotel room that you’ve stayed in… Same goes with fentanyl. It just takes a little bit.”
Anyone attempting to do tests themselves should know their sensitivity. Hartshorn says some commercial wipes can only detect contamination at or above 0.5 mg of meth per 100 square centimeters, which is five times more than the level Alaska allows for structures involved in meth production.
“We cannot put families and children—the next generation of families and elders—in homes that are contaminated,” MacDonald says. “That’s just unfathomable to me. We can’t put people in dirty homes. Our mission is to put people in safe, affordable housing. And that’s not safe.”