09:13 AM CST on Thursday, January 6, 2005

SHELTON GREEN / KVUE News

A 55-year-old man has been charged with making drugs in his Northwest Austin apartment in what police say is the third such drug lab raid in a week.

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KVUE News

Bottles and bottles of dangerous chemicals were found in the apartment, police said.

The most recent was one of the most dangerous chemical set-ups detectives say they have ever seen. Police found out about it thanks to an alert maintenance worker just days after the tenant almost burned the apartment building down.

From the outside of the apartment in the 7800 block of San Felipe on Wednesday, nothing appeared sinister. But peering through the window it was easy to tell something wasn't quite right.

"I was real surprised to find something like that near where I live," said Julio Vislar, a neighbor.

Surprised, too, was a maintenance worker who found bottle after bottle of potentially dangerous chemicals in apartment 603. For 10 years, it was the home to 55-year-old Mallory Wendell Mayes. He's now charged with manufacturing methamphetamine.

"This is one of the biggest labs we've seen in quite some time," said Harold Piatt, an Austin Police Department commander.

In the open were bottles and jugs of acetone, red phosphorous, iodine, alcohol and hydrogen peroxide. All were ingredients for methamphetamine and all highly flammable.

In fact, on Monday, Mayes was severely burned in an accidental fire.

Along with the drug ingredients, police found several handguns and rifles in the apartment. One of those, officers say, is stolen.

Police said the lab was the third one raided in just a week.

"If they live in an apartment complex and they go by a door and they smell a very strong odor of something that smells like paint thinner or finger nail polish remover they need to let the maintenance folks know or somebody in the apartment know," said Piatt.

If convicted of the drug manufacturing charge, Mayes faces up to 15 years in federal prison.