If you are running a clandestine lab, why *wouldn’t* you use an abandoned building? No one bothers with abandoned buildings. Other than kids who love to tag abandoned structures and homeless squatters who might not bother trying to get in if it is locked securely, abandoned buildings are typically ignored.
On the other hand, going through legal channels to get a building properly purchased and titled, having utilities connected, etc., automatically puts the building under a certain level of official observation. It tells the government who owns the building, which may not be information that clandestine researchers want known.
As for the electricity, they might have been using generators or tapping illegally into the city power supply.
All very good points.
I worked with a guy who had a job in the Fairfax area in the 1990s. He’d stop each morning at a coffee/donut shop...across from some modern business building (3-story type).
One day, he stops for coffee/donuts and the building is no longer there....so he asks the coffee shop lady what happened.
Week prior....one morning, she arrives and all-hell is breaking loose. Some security guard in the parking lot at 6 AM. Someone had broke in and released the ‘chimps’.
Two hours pass and some hazmat-type truck arrives....maybe a dozen guys and they put down all of the loose chimps. Couple of guys in suits arrive to assess things, and by late afternoon...some crew arrives to tear down the building. Takes the whole weekend but by Monday...there’s nothing there but gravel.
Nothing ever said...nothing in the newspapers.
Anyone’s guess if this was an official lab or a unofficial lab.