The Studio That Became a Cannabis Farm

Pulse Stories are first-person stories written by RRSource. This is not one real person's account: names, places and details are invented, but the events reflect situations documented in public reporting.

The studio was tiny. One room, a kitchenette, a shower you had to step into sideways. I bought it with the money my grandmother left me, and I painted the walls myself, a pale yellow she would have hated and I loved. I rented it out to pay off the loan. I was proud of it the way you are proud of the first thing that is properly yours.

I let it to a man who said he was renting it for his cousin. The cousin was "coming over to study." He paid the deposit and three months' rent by bank transfer, sent me a photo of an ID, and said the cousin was shy and his English wasn't good yet, so it would be easier if I dealt with him. That seemed kind. I thought: family looking after family.

I never met the cousin. I never once asked why.

The call

It was a Tuesday in February. A police officer asked if I was the owner of the flat, and then asked if I was sitting down, which is a thing I did not know people actually said.

They had gone in because the downstairs neighbour reported water coming through her ceiling. Inside, they found the room I had painted yellow covered in black plastic. Lights. Pipes. Hundreds of plants packed so tightly you couldn't see the floor. The heat, the officer said, was unbearable.

And then she said: "There was a young man inside."

I asked if he'd been arrested. There was a pause.

"He's sixteen," she said. "The door was padlocked from the outside. There was a mattress behind the plants, a bucket, and some bread. We think he'd been there for about seven weeks."

What I keep seeing

I never saw him. I have only the details, and my mind has built the rest, and I cannot make it stop.

Seven weeks. That is the whole of January. While I was at my sister's for dinner, while I was complaining about the cold, while I was checking my banking app and feeling pleased that the rent had come in on time — there was a child behind a door I owned, in the dark, breathing that air, watering plants for people who had taken his passport and told him his mother would pay if he ran.

The rent came in on time. I keep coming back to that. I was paid, every month, to not ask a single question.

The officer told me that people who tend these places are very often exploited themselves — young, far from home, in debt to the people who brought them, too frightened to leave. Some are treated as criminals when they're found. I asked what would happen to him. She said she couldn't tell me, but that he was safe now and being looked after by specialists. I asked if I could send something. She said no, gently, and I understood, and I cried in my car for a long time.

The yellow walls

The flat has been repaired. The insurance fight went on for months and I lost most of it. The walls are white now; I couldn't paint them yellow again.

People say to me, "You were a victim too." Maybe. But I had a choice at every step. I could have insisted on meeting the person who would live there. I could have asked why a student needed a man to speak for him. I could have checked who I was really letting my home to. I didn't, because the money arrived and it was easier not to.

He didn't have any choices at all.

I don't know his name. I think about him every day. I hope, wherever he is, someone has painted him a room with the lights on.

Behind the story

What is documented: Investigative reporting and anti-trafficking organisations have documented that illegal cannabis farms in residential properties are often tended by exploited people, including trafficked teenagers, who may be held in debt bondage, locked in, and threatened into staying. Some have been prosecuted when they should have been protected as victims.

The warning signs in this story:

• A tenancy arranged by a third party on behalf of someone you never meet
• An occupier who "cannot" communicate directly
• No visits, no contact, rent always on time
• Water leaks, heat, blacked-out windows or complaints from neighbours

What would have helped: meeting and verifying the identity of the actual occupier, not just the payer; periodic inspections; acting immediately on neighbour concerns. If you suspect someone is being exploited, contact the police or a modern slavery or anti-trafficking helpline in your country. See also what landlords should verify before accepting a tenant.