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That time a squirrel chewed through a main line in a Cincinnati attic
I was up in a hot attic last summer running a new drop, and I found a whole nest of coax pieces where a squirrel family had been using the old cable as a chew toy. I had to splice in about 15 feet of new RG6 and secure the whole run inside a piece of PVC conduit to keep them from doing it again. What's the weirdest animal damage you've had to fix on a job?
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the_charles7mo ago
I mean, is coax even that big of a deal anymore? Most people are streaming everything. A squirrel chewing it just means someone's cable TV goes out, not like they lost power or water. Weirdest thing I've seen is birds nesting in a vent cap, but even that just made a house smell bad for a bit. It's annoying to fix but it's not exactly an emergency.
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henrygrant7mo ago
Yeah, the "not exactly an emergency" part got me. Tell that to me last Tuesday when my internet died during a video call. I was doing the frantic smile-and-nod while my screen froze on my boss's confused face. Had to finish the meeting from my phone using data in my driveway. A chewed cable feels pretty urgent when you're the one suddenly offline. Makes a smelly vent cap seem like a vacation.
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lunar477mo ago
Coax is still a big deal for a lot of people's internet, not just TV. A lot of cable companies use the same line for broadband, so a chewed cable can knock out someone's whole home connection. That's a real problem when everything from work to school depends on it.
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