By Lori EhdeA rural house near Hills will need to be destroyed after authorities seized a meth lab on the property last week.Charlie and Dawn Sandager, Hills, were renting an acreage to Donald Wilson and Darwin Otten, who were arrested on Nov. 12 on meth-related charges.As property owners, the Sandagers are by law responsible for the cost of decontaminating the property, and they’ve decided not to do it."It just isn’t worth it," Charlie Sandager said Friday. "I just think this law kind of sucks."For every one pound of meth produced, five to six pounds of toxic waste are generated, and taxpayers used to be saddled with the cost of cleanup.Minnesota law requires that rental properties are cleaned if they’ve housed known meth labs. And cleaning to the specifications of the law is a costly process — up to $10,000, depending on the size of the home.Rock County passed an ordinance last year that puts the burden of cleanup cost on property owners."In the end, the property owner is left with the mess," said Nobles-Rock Public Health Sanitarian Jason Kloss. "They need to keep track of who they rent to. It’s very risky."He met last week with the Sandagers at the acreage, which is located in Section 17 of Martin Township.He said the first step of the process is to determine if the house needs to be cleaned, and that requires a $1,000 test up front."In law enforcement interviews with the suspects, we know they did most of their cooking in the outbuildings," Kloss said. "But they probably smoked (meth) in the house."Sandager said the house — a two-story, typical farm house — is run-down as it is, so the plan is to destroy it."I don’t see myself as a victim here," he said. "The house wasn’t worth anything when we first got it, and Donny did a lot to fix it up and clean up the place. … The real victims here are the kids. I didn’t want to evict them while the kids were living there."The kids are now living in Valley Springs, so Sandager said he now just feels bad for the addicts."I feel bad that he exposed the community to all this," Sandager said. "You always kind of hope they can turn around and make something of their lives."The Sandagers described Wilson as a nice man who has rented the property since the early 1990s, but this was the fourth search warrant executed on the property since 2000. Three were for controlled substance crimes and one for stolen property.The Nov. 12 search was the first to produce an active meth lab.In addition to recovering a 9 millimeter handgun, a long list of items used to manufacture meth were also seized, mostly in a shop and corn crib on the premises.The list includes, for example, starter fluid, paint stripper, acetone, pseudoephedrine, glass jars, rubber gloves, coffee filters, lithium batteries, drain opener, anhydrous ammonia tanks, a hot grill, a bong and miscellaneous containers with colored, layered mixtures.The Sandagers will notify Wilson and Otten of a reasonable time frame to remove personal belongings before the house is destroyed.On Monday, Nov. 14, Wilson, 50, was charged with first-degree controlled substance crime for manufacturing meth and fifth-degree controlled substance crime for possessing meth.Otten, 45, was charged with two first-degree controlled substance crimes — one for attempted manufacture of meth and one for conspiracy to produce meth (for possessing the precursors to produce meth). He was also charged with fifth-degree controlled substance crime for possessing meth.They remain in custody at the Prairie Justice Center, Worthington. Wilson is being held on a $20,000 bond and Otten has a bond of $5,000.