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?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_charles19d 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.

henrygrant18d agoMost Upvoted

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.

lunar4718d 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.