About 4 a.m. I woke up from the noise of a loud buzzing and electrical popping sound coming from outside our bedroom. My first though was that my son’s room humidifier had run out of water however I had never heard it make that kind of noise.
The sound however was coming from the living room from behind a side table where we have a power strip lying. The only thing plugged into it was an answering machine and a nintendo charger. It was dim so I couldn’t see any smoke but it was crackling and popping something awful and a horrible smell of burning plastic was coming from it.
I immediately unplugged it from the wall, yanked the chargers out of it and then dropped it in the kitchen sink. I thought the chances that a power strip would start to go buggy in the middle of the night by itself were pretty slim.
Sure enough, upon closer inspection of the unit and the ground where it was lying I found the culprit, dog urine.
Since the temps here have dropped below zero the dogs are being babies about going outside to do their business. So the littlest one decides to sneak off in the middle of the night and take a whizz directly on the power strip.:smack:
I couldn’t sleep after that and googled to see if anybody else ever had this happen and sure enough, it happened to a bunch of people with pets and even burned down a couple homes: knoxnews ChaskaFire
From now on my power strips will be secured to a wall.
If this were a Star Trek episode, the combination of dog urine/Nintendo charger/answering machine/electricity would have created a temporal vortex that sent him into the future. Quick, memorize some winning lottery numbers from 1989 before Data figures out how to send you back!
How would you like to have to go outside & drop trou, letting it literally hang out, to do your business in this weather? Kwityerbitchin’ & give Fido a pack of matches to play with.
Seriously, I’m glad I’ve got indoor plumbing & heating rather that the outhouses of our forefathers.
You may want to investigate arc-fault circuit interruption devices to make your outlets more resilient to this type of danger. You can replace the circuit breakers that control them with AFCI breakers which will trip if something begins to arc.
It’s been below zero here as well, but our dogs must be made of stronger stuff. I’m the one standing on the porch, barefoot, freezing my ass off while the dogs romp, play, piss, and shit.
Shocking as it may seem a large number of dog owners are also wimps about accompanying their dogs outside in brutally cold weather. Are you sure this doesn’t fit you? Are your sure your dogs didn’t give you that “please come along, Master” look?
My sister had a dog that would “pretend” to pee when it was very cold out. I saw it happen once. She would take the dog to the porch and tell it to go pee. The dog would take a few steps into the backyard and squat (it was female) for about 3 seconds and then want to come back in. My sister would say “No! Go Pee!”, and the dog would go back out and really pee, then my sister would let the dog back in.
My sister told me she found out about the “fake peeing” once when she found the dog had peed in the house one night. She knew she let the dog out, but didn’t watch her. I doubted a dog would try to trick its master, which is why my sister had me watch it in action.
First child, a son. About a year old?? I forget, maybe 16 months, whatever.
Living in a house trailer in 1970.
Baby standing facing the headboard & wall with window.
Sniff, sniff, I think we have a wet diaper here.
All three of us go to the baby room to take care of the problem.
I sell smoke…
Master bedroom has the wall behind the headboard on fire. Pee finally shorted the receptacle after we had moved which was lucky.
Window curtains were some kind of synthetic.
Flaming & melting.
I grab the headboard & pulled the bed away from the wall while yelling at the wife to take the baby and get out NOW !!!
My hand was in a pile of molten plastic goo that had fallen on the headboard.
Jumped out the back door, ( no steps there ) race around to unplug the trailer electrical connection, then back to the water hose and there I stand, in my underwear, spraying water in the back door while my wife is holding our naked son and wearing her underwear.
Turns out I had forgotten there was a receptacle behind the bed.
Forgot to teach my son to not pee on the bed or near a wall. He was really full & filled that diaper to beyond it’s capacity.
Glad you found yours before it was a full fire. They move fast.
Whoever it was peed on a live power strip to the point where it started shorting out and arcing. So, is anyone in the house hunched over covering their nads and screaming in agony?
How about just plain old running around the house yelping in pain?
Sure glad we don’t have to apply the burn creme twice a day for 3 weeks…
My dog nearly started a fire in my house. I think I even posted about it.
Somehow, while I was out, Nathan got hold of a box of wooden matches I keep. Now, dogs don’t have opposable thumbs, but this is what I deduced happened.
I came into the house and found an arc of black sticks, leading up to my living room chair. There was the remains of a box of matches centered in a charred hole in the carpet. My guess is that he got the box, shook it like dogs do, and managed to create just enough friction to light one, or at least get them hot. The arc was created when he “flung” it away, when it got too hot.
I’m lucky the whole box didn’t go up and burn my out.
My California-born and -raised boy Dane turned out to be a crazy snow dog. Zero degrees with a wind and he’s out there gobbling down the powdery snow. It was a change from the usual heavier, chunky stuff he loves, I guess. It can be a chore to get him to come in when there’s fresh snow to eat…
Doing his business is no problem in the cold and snow. He’s in a hurry to get done so he can get chowin’.
Hampshire, really glad you managed to save the day, your house and your family. That’s some scary stuff!
I, too, am the owner of a sneaky little dog who requires watching to ensure he’s not just lifting his leg outside and going through the motions. He’s usually pretty good, but if it’s especially cold and/or snowy out (thankfully rare occurrences), I make sure I see actual squirting.
Never even thought about power strips being a hazard from dog whiz. Something else to look after…
