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Fake buyers raiding medicine cabinets at open houses to steal opioids from home sellers
Aug. 26th, 2019

People are sneaking into open houses under realtors' noses and stealing home sellers' prescription opioids.

As the flood of opioids into vulnerable communities has grown, realtors have had to be on guard to prevent drug theft while hosting open houses, and to educate home sellers about their roles in prevention, including hiding their medications in the same way they would firearms.

Realtor associations across the country have taken on the unlikely role, in league with law enforcement and healthcare professionals, in working to prevent the spread of opioid abuse.

"We're seeing more of it, I think, and I'll speak from a Pennsylvania and a local level," Bill McFalls, Jr., president of the Pennsylvania Association of Realtors told the Washington Examiner. "I have seen it firsthand in a family. We do mail outs, seminars, to make [PAR members] aware of what's happening out there. It's occurring, and we go to great lengths to instruct members how to prevent against it."

Members are told to ID people arriving to open houses, as well as to keep a close watch on people in the homes, sometimes sending more than one agent to monitor the crowds.

The Pennsylvania Association of Realtors are advising not only their members, but also their sellers, about the problem and how to safeguard their medications during open houses.

McFalls said his association tells sellers that hiding pill bottles is not enough. Sellers are advised to lock their medications in a safe. The Delaware County Heroin Task Force is working with the national opioid abuse prevention group Lock Your Meds to encourage people nationwide that locking up opioids is a near fool-proof way to safeguard their medications.

Anjanette Frye, president of Ohio Realtors told the Washington Examiner her association is partnering with the Ohio Opioid Education Alliance.

Realtors encourage sellers to keep drugs away from rogue "buyers" by putting extra pills sellers will not need into bags provided by the realtor "that dissolve the drugs when they come in contact with water," Frye said. For example if a seller is prescribed a 30-day supply but they feel better after 15 days, they can put their pills in this bag, add water, and the pills' chemicals break down and the pills disintegrate. The process has "been pretty successful," Frye said.

"We've been working with the alliance since last year and will continue to work into 2020 and years to come," she said. "Ohio has a huge opioid crisis. This is part of the community building process."

Frye added that measures Ohio Realtors have taken alongside the Ohio Opioid Education Alliance have led to a noticeable decrease in reported instances of theft.

Realtors themselves have not been immune to the urge to raid medicine cabinets

"About three years ago we found that a former agent was stealing things in open houses," Eric Winklhofer, president of the Buffalo Niagara Association of Realtors, told the Washington Examiner. "She was actually arrested."