Could your electric bill trigger a marijuana SWAT raid?

This week Colorado police arrested 3 people for growing marijuana inside their home after noticing their “high” electric bill.

If you follow the news, you’ll notice “electric bill raids” are not uncommon. Police often resort to mining electric bills, since it’s cheaper than using heat sensing cameras with helicopters and potentially less troublesome legally.

So for those of you who keep the air conditioner, 3 TVs, a computer and a washer/dryer running, you might be wondering whether see your electric bill as suspicious.

The answer might surprise you… It certainly surprised the Dagey family of Carlsebad, CA in 2004. After noticing their “very excessive”electric bill, police raided their home only to find a family with a voracious appetite for home electronics.

What’s interesting about the Dagey case is that the search warrant affidvait used to raid their home reveals what sort of electricity use to triggers an investigation.

We know from the affidavit that the Dageys were using 1163 kW of electricity per month on average, with a high of 1616 kW per month in January. We also know the Dagey home is 2,104 square feet. So what does this mean? It means that the Dageys average electricity use comes out to .55 kW per square foot of house.

Keep in mind that this .55 Kws per square foot figure was not merely sort of high and therefore mildly suspicious, but in the words of 14 year detective Mark Reyes, “very excessive” and “very consistent with an indoor marijuana grow operation.”

So do you meet the “Dagey marijuana raid standard”? To find out, just divide how many Kws of electricity you use per month by the square footage of your home. If the answer is .55 or greater, your electricity use is apparently very consistent with an indoor pot farmer’s.

Now remember to turn off your lights before Detective Reyes pays you a visit…

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