ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area What's the Strangest or Funniest Service Call?

Harold, I have heard the howling dog story before. I tend to believe it. Nobody could make up something like that!

The poked pooch story was likely posted here , but I can't locate it at the moment.




[This message has been edited by Bjarney (edited 08-13-2003).]

Here are my favorites:
A failed engineer-now mechanical contractor wanted to borrow my meter to see why his electric fence wasn't keeping his dog in. A visit to the site showed a 2-ft. dip in the yard, next to the gate, where the unit plugged in.
A customer called to complain that the bath fan I had wired up was making noise. The man had dis-assembled the thing, then forced the fan back in the housing upside down.
Finally, a customer who had "helped" in wiring his new plant complained that some receptacles that had been working were now tripping the breaker instantly. I went nuts trying to trace the receptacles to the breaker in question. I finally realised that the receptacles could never have worked, as they never had that last piece of MC run to the panel! I found the tripping breaker was for a single receptacle that sat, unused, behind the receptionists' massive desk assembly. The unused screw on the device was touching the mud ring.

My story about the dog and the telephone system could very well be one of those old "Urban legends". However I heard this story in 1975. Take it for what it is worth.

This didn't happen to me ... glad it didn't!

Snake in computer photo

As for me, it was a rat that had electrocuted itself after chewing through wires in a wall.

CW

While working at an amusement park as a maintenance mechanic more than a few times I had to help get, well, for lack of a better way to put this, "wicked fat" people out of rides.

Lap bars or seatbelts latched to tight to release or the people just could not get out of the strange seating positions that some rides require.

I challenge you to keep a straight face while helping them out.

If you are big and decide to ride "The Skydiver" listen to the operator when they say keep your arms up while they shut the cage over you, unless of course you like a broken arm or two. OUCH!

Bob

citizenwatch,

Welcome to ECN!
I'm sure that was a surprise to those guys!

About 10 years back my father-in-law had a car (Sable I think) which developed this really bad smell that he couldn't get rid of - for weeks and weeks. I drove the car for a week myself and the smell was unbelievable, even though the whole interior was doused with perfume and whatever they could find. He finally brought the car to the dealer to see what was going on. The story goes that they had it up on the rack and were looking inside the air ducts and an 8 ft. Snake carcass comes sliding out on them.

My brother-in-law (late teens at the time) had been told by his Mother to get rid of his pet Snake, she didn't want it in the house anymore. He decide to take it to some friends houses to see who would take it. At some stop along the way he came back to the car and found that the Snake got out of it's cage/tank and he thought it had escaped. (windows open I guess). As we all found out later, it had just crawled into the AC/Heater ductwork. He never said a thing about the missing snake in all that time...

Bill

I was sent on a service call at an old couple's house. It seemed that whenever the wife would mop her kitchen floor and brush up against the sink, she would get zapped. Her husband thought she was nuts! Well I put my tester on the wet floor, and the sink. no voltage. So then she said it happened when her husband was downstairs in the basement fiddling with his "stuff". So I went to the basement and looked at the open beamed ceiling, and there was a two lite four foot fixture there, After I opened it, she yelled,"I got zapped again!" I ran back up stairs,and tested the floor again. No voltage. So I went back downstairs, and as soon as I turned on the basement lite, she said "I got zapped again". I told the woman to get away from the sink, and after turning off the lite, I found one of the screws which were used to secure the fixture, dead center of the romex, and since her husband had installed it, he did not realize the importance of grounding all metal objects. Needless to say, he could no longer fiddle with any of the electric anymore!
Richard

OK, I have one or two more. I was working in a house, trying to snake a wire in the wall. I reach way down inside the open hole to try and find my snake, this little old lady next to me starts to say,"I'm sorry if the is a real bad smell in my house. A rat crawled into the wall and died." Now Here I am, elbow deep into a hole in the wall, and I am hoping to God that I don't find that rat!. A friend of mine almost had the same problem. He cut a hole for an old work box, reached inside the hole and pulled aou a handfull of little tiny spiders! He wasked off his hands, picked up his tools and left. The lady called out to him, "What about the hole in the wall?" He replied, "No problem! No Charge!"

Bob,
I've done the very same job, before!.
And yes, it is hard to keep a straight face!. LOL