ALTON — Richard Dailey slowed his truck and glanced at the house where he once partied.

He saw a child's bicycle in the front yard.

"Oh, my God," he said, as his truck inched closer to the one-story home. "There's children living there. This is terrible. Someone needs to tell them what went on in that house."

It was one of "at least 50" houses where Dailey, 43, said he made methamphetamine during his 10-year addiction that led him to prison in 2005. It's a location he said nobody would find in police reports.

Police estimate that they find only one in 10 meth labs. The rest — including the one Dailey drove by on a recent afternoon — remain largely unidentified, leaving families at risk for exposure to toxic residues meth labs leave behind.

Dailey suggests asking meth cooks — either as part of plea bargains or as a condition of their parole from prison — to provide the addresses where they made meth.

"You could bring a bus full of meth addicts through town and ask them to point out the places where they made meth," Dailey said. "It would probably make you sick."

But authorities don't believe it would solve the problem.

Illinois State Police Master Sgt. Joe Beliveau said most addicts lie.

"I wish everyone was like him (Dailey) and wanted to come clean on everywhere they've cooked, because that would be a great thing," Beliveau said. "But I'm not sure what would come of notifying someone where you don't know for sure there was a lab."

Authorities could test those houses. In Missouri's Webster County, near Springfield, health officials in January began offering $30 tests to detect meth residue.

So far, they have tested about a dozen homes. Half have tested positive. None of them was ever busted by police.

"We would get calls regularly where people with kids were having respiratory issues that they never had before and didn't know why, and then a neighbor would say people used to do meth in their house," said environmental health specialist Terral Davis.

Without the tests, it would do little good, said Jefferson County Sgt. Gary Higginbotham.

"I'm not saying it's a bad idea, but we need to have more to tell people than just, 'He used to live there or cook there,'" Higginbotham said.

Dailey said that he had considered contacting the families living in homes where he made meth, but that he wasn't sure how well he would be received. The newspaper sent letters to residents of the five homes Dailey showed a reporter. Two owners responded: One doubted Dailey had the correct house, the other said he wasn't concerned because his health was fine.

The family living in the home where Dailey saw a child's bicycle has yet to respond.

cbyers@post-dispatch.com | 636-500-4106