“I've seen two properties that have been completely stripped from the inside out and rebuilt because of meth.”

Sam Anstee from SDA Building Group in East Gippsland has viewed his fair share of horrors when inspecting homes for potential buyers. If a budding Walter White had cooked enough meth, Anstee said it could seep into the roof and walls of a house.

“Meth doesn’t have a shelf life, so there’s no way of effectively cleaning it,” he told the Monitor. “If the readings are high enough, essentially you have to remove all the plaster.”

In his line of work, Anstee is looking for things that have gone wrong. Or are going wrong. Or could go wrong. In terms of costly repairs, termites rank highly.

“I've seen probably 10 houses that have had significant termite damage,” he said. “There was a property that was only three to four years old, which had a bill for the repair works and ongoing maintenance of well over $200,000.”

Anstee does two building inspections a day on average, and while stories of homes being eaten away by termites aren’t uncommon, he said day-to-day job was taken up with basic maintenance items like missing sealant in wet areas or blocked gutters.

Read the full story here.

Although the inside of the Bank Hotel Warragul has been substantially changed since it was built in the late 1930s, the old bank’s vault door remains in the same spot and still swings.

Check out a video on the building’s history.

The Monitor spoke to three Gippsland farmers who voiced fears that cuts to migrant numbers could leave them without the necessary workforce to pick their crops during harvest.

Read the full story here or watch a short video on it below.

🌷 The spring months offer the best chance to go for a wander and spot a wide variety of native lilies, wattles and orchids around Gippsland.

Wherever you go, stay on the tracks and leave the flowers where they are. Many orchids are tiny and easy to trample, and some of the species below are endangered. 

Check out our list of walks here.

Have you noticed similarities in your local pubs food?

My colleague Archie Milligan from the National Account has been making a series of videos on the monopolisation of beers and hotels in Australia.

Last week, he looked at how some hotel conglomerates use the same suppliers for schnitzels, fish and burgers - leading to near-identical meals across many hotels.

Check out the video below.