A few years ago I was growing in a fairly rough area of London. I had a sweet continuous turnover setup giving me about an ounce of Jack Herer each week. It was during the summer and the back door was open. I was upstairs in the kitchen when this big black bloke I didn't know comes wandering up the stairs I thought at first that he might be a friend of one of my housemates. He was very friendly ( Too friendly if you know what I mean ) and I think he tried to sell me some speed or something. Pretty quickly I sussed out he was dodgy. At this point I should have thrown him straight out of my house, but he was pretty pushy and I didn't. He said I had a nice house and started showing himself around, I noticed his eyes darting around the place looking for stuff to steal. I positioned myself in front of my bedroom door to stop him going in, but he pushed past me and found my setup. He was very complimentary about it and said he was a rasta and wouldn't tell anyone about it (yeah right). He persuaded me to give him a little bag and promised he would bring me some money for it. He got my phone number and left.

At this point I was basically crapping myself, literally shaking with fear. I knew I had to get rid of my setup as soon as possible. I feared the Bad Man would come back with his mates and just take it all. I wanted to be able to call the police if that happened so it all had to go. I made a few panicky calls to my girlfriend and a couple of mates to try and get some transport together. Then I took a pair of scissors and chopped down every single one of my beautiful plants.

This was one of the lowest points in my entire life, I felt terrible that I had been so crap and had let this bastard walk all over me. I felt that I was just a lame ass white boy, playing at being a criminal. My houseman was totally freaked out by it she hated the thought of our space being violated. Two of my good mates who came round to help. If you are ever growing you need to have at least one mate preferably with transport that you can call any time of the day or night.

I Stashed all the smokable buds, put all the rest in a couple of bin bags and dumped it by the train track some way from the house. After several hours we managed to get a car. We loaded my lights and some valuables stuff and drove it across London to a good friends house. We decided to spend the night there. I rigged a personal alarm to the backdoor, which barely had a lock, (doh!) .I didn't sleep well, I had so many thoughts running around my head about how useless I was and what might happen.

The next day I went home and the house was OK, although the alarm had been set off. I figured that the Bad Man was a dirty smack or crack head and that he would probably try and milk me for all the gear he could bully out of me, so I knew he would be back. I sorted the locks out and made sure that there was always plenty of people in my house. I decided that I had to show him that all my plants had gone, my thinking was that if he knew there was nothing for him he would leave us alone.

About a week later, at about ten at night, he rang up and said he had some money for me and that he wanted to get some more. I told him to come round round. I let him in and showed him up to my bedroom. I showed him my empty growbox and said

"Look what you made me do, you fucker, there's nothing here for you, now get out of my house."

Immediately his whole manner changed, he became very aggressive, saying that he was a bad man and that I shouldn't have fucked with him. He It looked like he might pull a knife but one of my my house mates appeared at the door with a big bit of wood and told him to get out. My mate was ready to drop him and I had to tell him to leave it. It would have given me a lot of satisfaction to beat the living shit out of him, my mate was certainly up for it, but I didn't want to escalate the situation, after a lot of threats and shouting and a bit of shoving we got him out of the front door.

I still remember an expression that flashed across his face as he went out, he looked as though he was about to cry. I knew we had beaten him.

That wasn't it though, he threw a rock through one of the front windows and I decided to call the police. Then the phone rang. It was him, I could people in the background laughing and shouting, he said he was going to come and burn down my house and that him and his yard mates were gonna shoot me and my housemates. It was fully scary shit. I just kept repeating "there's nothing here for you." I put the phone down and it rang again, same shit.

Then the police arrived, I told them that I had let this man in my house and he had turned ugly, they seemed a bit suspicious and I vaguely mentioned something about him selling some hash or something, I told them I didn't want them to press charges, but they said that they would keep an eye on the house. I wanted the bad man to see that I was not afraid to call the police.

I left the phone unplugged for a couple of weeks, and I have never seen him again. I was lucky though he was just a junky, they don't tend to have many friends, and all they care about is cash for their next fix. I moved out of that house as soon as I could.

I later found out that he knew I was growing, because one of my housemates had been a bit indiscreet with some students down the road.

I have grown again since then, but now I am a LOT more careful. The moral of this story is. Don't tell anyone who doesn't need to know that you are growing. It isn't just the police you should worry about and strangely sometimes the police can be your best friend.