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The day a squirrel decided to rewire a keypad for me
Got a call for a false alarm at a house in the woods. The keypad kept saying 'system trouble' and I spent two hours checking every connection and the panel. Turns out a squirrel had chewed through the low voltage wire running up the wall to the outdoor siren, and the short was making the keypad act crazy. The fix took five minutes, but the hunt took half my morning. Anyone else had a critter cause a weird fault like that?
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the_lisa2mo agoMost Upvoted
Two hours? Seriously? I would have lost my mind after the first thirty minutes of checking connections for a stupid squirrel. Those little monsters cause more trouble than you'd ever think possible. I've pulled nests out of panels that looked like they were trying to build a whole city in there. It's never a quick fix because you have to rule out everything else first. Makes you want to put everything in conduit just to spite them.
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amy_anderson2mo ago
But are they really that big of a problem?
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williams.sage29d ago
A good flashlight with a narrow beam is worth its weight in gold for tracing lines in tight spaces. @the_lisa hit the nail on the head about ruling everything else out first, usually takes me longer than the actual fix. I keep a telescoping mirror in my bag now too for peeking behind panels without pulling them all off. Squirrels are crafty but they hate the smell of peppermint oil if you want to spray some on the conduit after.
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