# Live animals under a house!



## Plumbus (Aug 4, 2008)

Had a raccoon take up residence under my house. Made enough racket down there that the boss said get rid of it. So, remembering that my neighbor had been trapping raccoons a few years earlier, because they were destroying his new lawn, I paid him a visit and he let me borrow his trap. After explaining how to bait it and top place it by the most likely entrance to my crawl space, he warned me to never pick up an occupied cage bare handed. A broom handle was his tool of choice. Fast forward to the very next morning and you could here the noise emanating from that cage in the next county. Grabbed a broom, went out in back and stuck it through the bars. Boy, did he go after it. Made my fingers twitch. Took him to the nearest forested area, opened the cage door and off he went. Went back to the house and just to be safe, I crawled under to see if there was any damage. Didn't see any, but I heard a noise and upon investigation, I found 4 little bundles of fur huddled together. My raccoon was a she.


----------



## smellslike$tome (Jun 16, 2008)

Did you gather them up and take them to the place where you dropped off Momma?


----------



## service guy (Jun 26, 2008)

That reminds of great story. Got a call about sewage leaking under a trailer. I get there and go check it out. The lady says they have had a horrible smell in the house the past few weeks and don't know why, then they noticed a leak underneath the trailer.
I was with an apprentice and I suited up in my coveralls and rubber gloves and told him I'd go in to investigate. I see a large bulge in the plastic underneath the trailer that is leaking smelly liquid. I go under and cut it open with a utility knife and water pours out everywhere as I scramble out yelling, "AAUUGGHH, POOPY!" After it finished draining I went back under and realized it was just a leak on a polybutylene waterline...weird.
So we tell the customer that its just a leak and that we'll fix it. So I crawl back under and start working on the waterline repair. I notice that the smell is still quite strong and there are flies everywhere for some strange reason.

..All of a sudden I look up next to the leak I am working on and....

...THERE IS A DEAD CAT HANGING ONLY A FEW FEET FROM MY HEAD AND ITS ALL BLOATED AND ITS EYES ARE HANGING OUT OF ITS SKULL!!! It was sick!!!

I gently asked the lady if she was missing a cat and she said no. Apparently a stray cat was very thirsty, climbed in to the plastic insulation to get water from the potybutylene leak and then got trapped and drowned in the puddle!

I used a rake to drag it out to the side of the trailer and told the lady, "DON'T GO BACK THERE, wait until your boyfriend comes home to deal with it."
Because it was really horrible-looking with its guts all bloated and its rotting eyeballs hanging out of its head.
Just as we are pulling out of the driveway I see her tiptoeing around the back to take a peek, so I rolled down the window, "I warned you not to go back ther, its really nasty."

"But I am curious!", she admitted. I can just picture what happened after she got a good look at it.
__________________


----------



## Cal (Jun 17, 2008)

That was SICK !! Good one though !!

Here's one ;
Open a crawl space cause of a nasty smell . Just before climbing in , notice the floor is "moving" . Apparantly , the sewer has been leaking for a LONG TIME !! The floor that was moving ,,,, was the entire crawl of ,,,, MAGGOTS !! Call the CDC ,,, see you later !

Cal


----------



## smellslike$tome (Jun 16, 2008)

The thing that worries me occasionally is old Mr. NoShoulders and the fact that the human eye supposedly relies so much on motion (and it seems to be true to me) in order to distinguish particular objects from their background. So you could be crawling along and be staring him in the face and not even realize he is there unless he moves. Well, when he moves it might be too late!

Now, having said that, I have never seen a snake in a cs. Seen some skins but no wigglers. So what does that mean, that there haven't been any snakes in the cs I've been in or that they just never moved and let me pass on by?


----------



## gear junkie (Jun 20, 2008)

I have been under some tight crawlspaces and felt rats crawl under me trapped between the visquine and the ground.


----------



## smellslike$tome (Jun 16, 2008)

I am not generally claustrophobic but sometimes in an exceptionally tight space I will be seized by a fear that I will get stuck and be unable to get out. It's seems to be something I can work through because after all the job has to get done and if I don't do it it won't get done so I just suck it up and push on.

If a rat or snake or anything else came near me while I was in a situation like that I would probably crack my skull open on a floor joist trying to get away and just lay there and bleed to death (as the rats feasted on my flesh, probably zombie rats at that) before I could wake up.

It's 9:43 pm here Gear Junkie. Thanks for the impending nightmare.


----------



## Herk (Jun 12, 2008)

I once worked in a crawlspace area with snakes. There was a lot of river rock and you could constantly hear slithering. Once in a while, I'd look down and there'd be one staring at me. I started catching them and eventually had five midsized garter snakes in a five-gallon bucket, all springing at the top to get out.


----------



## Cal (Jun 17, 2008)

smellslike$tome said:


> I am not generally claustrophobic but sometimes in an exceptionally tight space I will be seized by a fear that I will get stuck and be unable to get out. It's seems to be something I can work through because after all the job has to get done and if I don't do it it won't get done so I just suck it up and push on.
> 
> If a rat or snake or anything else came near me while I was in a situation like that I would probably crack my skull open on a floor joist trying to get away and just lay there and bleed to death (as the rats feasted on my flesh, probably zombie rats at that) before I could wake up.
> 
> It's 9:43 pm here Gear Junkie. Thanks for the impending nightmare.


:laughing::laughing: Good one !! 
As an 18 year old apprentice , I spent a month + every day in a crawl space of a HUGE retirement center . We had to replace all old black heat lines with copper . Fought off a few rats and one large snake with my torch ,,,, Anyway , I was in there so long I started to imagine that there was a whole group of of LARGE EYED ZOMBIES who lived under here , could out crawl me and feed off human flesh ! I think it took me two months after that to get a good night's sleep !

Ahhhhh ,,, memories . Thanks for NOTHIN' fellas :yes:

Cal


----------



## Plumberman (Jul 7, 2008)

I was ass deep in sewer in a c.s at a hospital. Sump pumps went bad and of course they had a busted 10" main underneath medical records. As im swimming through sewer I turn my flash light to the left and see red eyes about 2 ft from me. I walked on water back to the ladder. :laughing: Luckily it was just a cat. He was still there when I came back. He wasent sure about trying to float in the water.


----------



## smellslike$tome (Jun 16, 2008)

Plumberman said:


> I was ass deep in sewer in a c.s at a hospital. Sump pumps went bad and of course they had a busted 10" main underneath medical records. As im swimming through sewer I turn my flash light to the left and see red eyes about 2 ft from me. I walked on water back to the ladder. :laughing: Luckily it was just a cat. He was still there when I came back. He wasent sure about trying to float in the water.


I refuse to work at any medical facility, especially hospitals. That's where all the sickness and diseases are at and of course as they afflict people and cause them to vomit and have diarrhea, it all ends up down the drain.

I wonder how many different diseases you were exposed to on that occasion?

I actually turned down a job once that I was all set to take. When I found out that a certain amount of hospital service work would be involved (I was still strictly new con at the time) I said "thanks but no thanks".


----------



## Plumbus (Aug 4, 2008)

Hey Smells! When I was in Birmingham last year, I noticed that your town is loaded with hospitals. Saying no thanks to them cuts out a potential source of $$$$. Good on you for putting your health before your bankroll. :thumbup:


----------

