Toronto's taxpayers will have to foot the bill for cleaning up a crystal methamphetamine lab in a prosperous neighbourhood, police say.

Toronto police raided a duplex on Woburn Avenue, near Avenue Road and Lawrence Avenue West, overnight Tuesday to Wednesday.

They later determined the rented home was outfitted to produce crystal meth, and will soon begin cleaning up the property. The tenants have not been found.

A city bylaw passed in 2007 states that authorities can clean up a marijuana grow-op "at the expense of the owner or occupant who has failed to comply, and may recover the costs of doing so from the responsible person by action or by adding them to the tax roll and collecting them in the same manner as property taxes."

But there are no such rules covering the cleanup for a meth lab.

'Clearly a loophole'

"There's clearly a loophole in the law. And in this case, the Toronto taxpayers are on the hook for the full investigative cost," Staff Insp. Mario Di Tomasso said Thursday.

The cleanup involved is fairly extensive due to the massive environmental and structural damage caused by production of methamphetamine. Drywall will have to be knocked down, the studs removed and the air in the home checked to ensure it is sufficiently clean, Di Tomasso said.

"My expenses to deal with a meth lab are likely about 10 times more expensive than dealing with a marijuana grow operation," he said.

The owner of the Woburn duplex wants to demolish the building, which may lower the cost of the cleanup, said Di Tomasso.

Meanwhile, the Toronto Real Estate Board is calling on the Ontario government to help inform prospective homeowners if certain properties have checkered histories.

Realtors are obligated to disclose whether a property they are selling was used to manufacture drugs. But in many cases they may not know the history of the property, said Von Palmer, spokesman for the Toronto Real Estate Board.

"There is no database right now that you can tap into that will tell you that this particular property was a grow-op or a meth lab. And that's a problem," said Palmer.

The province should create such a database and post it online, he said.