Pastor Evan Carr is a tall man with an ease about him, which suits his role as police chaplain to five local stations.
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He lives in Edwards Crescent, Wendouree, having bought a house there two years ago. He moved from Werribee, and liked the street for its quiet aspect.
Inspecting his current home for purchase, he was alerted by his son-in-law to a strange omission: the mains cable from the street to the house was missing.
"We realised that was a bit odd," Mr Carr says.
The oddity was compounded when further inspection revealed the distinct lack of a meter box. A few questions among his police contacts soon put the Carrs straight. Their prospective home was the subject of a raid in the previous year. It had been a grow house.
Edwards Crescent is indeed a quiet street, although the raid this week has led to an increase in rubberneckers, says Val, who lives next door to the current grow house.
While we are talking three cars pull up at number 17 for a curious look.
The houses are all built in much the same style, an early 1970s brown or tan brick with Spanish touches of amber glass and arches. The lawns are neatly mown, the gardens full of shrubs and small trees. Val says she bought her home 11 years ago, after the death of her husband.
"I was living on a main road and wanted to get away from the noise," she says.
"The next-door neighbour was lovely, but she wanted to downsize, and some new people bought the house. They said they loved the garden, they wanted to work in the garden, but I never saw anyone actually in there.
"There would be a red car parked in the driveway, then a white one, then the red one again, then the white one, but I never saw people go in there as though they lived there, carry groceries in or anything like that. People would come and go at night, and at first I thought the owners might be working in Melbourne. After a while I got suspicious."
Her suspicions were confirmed last Monday when police executed a warrant on 17 Edwards Crescent and uncovered a sophisticated hydroponic cannabis system installed throughout the rooms of the house.
The house was rewired to bypass the electricity meter, a dangerous alteration requiring technical knowledge to avoid electrocution.
Police allege the house contained around $1 million of cannabis - something Evan Carr is familiar with.
When he found out his prospective home had a criminal past, his first concern was the kind of drugs had been manufactured or grown there.
"We were worried there might be an issue with residue if it was (a lab), but they told us, 'Nah, it's just cannabis. You'll be fine."