Cats and Ladders

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busman

busman

Senior Member
Location
Northern Virginia
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Master Electrician / Electrical Engineer
Not a kid's game. Anyone have this before. Left my 10-foot step below a chandelier. About 10 minutes later I come back to take the ladder down and a cat is perched on the top. The HO's left me in the house, so I had to remove the cat. Got a few scratches and felt like a fireman for a day.

Just a funny story.

Mark
 
busman said:
Not a kid's game. Anyone have this before. Left my 10-foot step below a chandelier. About 10 minutes later I come back to take the ladder down and a cat is perched on the top. The HO's left me in the house, so I had to remove the cat. Got a few scratches and felt like a fireman for a day.

Just a funny story.

Mark
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I'll bet that if you just closed up the ladder and tipped it, the cat would have found its way safely to the floor.
 
my son was less then three he found his way to the top of my ladder my wife gets mad at me. i thought i might have a tradesman. no chance of that now he runs when he sees me take out the ladder he might have to help me.
 
Bob NH said:
I'll bet that if you just closed up the ladder and tipped it, the cat would have found its way safely to the floor.
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I got the impression that the cat was atop the chandelier, not the ladder, which would have been an easy fix.

It would have been worse had the homeowners come home with the cat still on its perch; if I am correct, that is.
 
busman said:
Anyone have this before. Left my 10-foot step below a chandelier. About 10 minutes later I come back to take the ladder down and a cat is perched on the top.....
Click to expand...

A friend of mine has a 28' extension ladder permanently parked against the back of his house near a 2nd floor window. Poor man's fire escape, I guess. I was visiting him one evening, we were upstairs looking at something when I looked out the window and saw his cat at the top of that ladder, staring in at us.

I was a bit surprised to see a cat on the top rung of a big extension ladder, and asked my friend about it. Rather than go to the window, he went the other direction and opened the porch door. A minute later, the cat came strolling in the door as if all was normal. It turns out that's how the cat lets them know he wants to come inside, he climbs the ladder and stares in the window until someone notices him and opens a door. Go figure.

Reminds me of that old saying, "Dogs have owners, cats have staff." :)
 
Wired a dishwasher a week ago, I was just finishing this job so all I had left was to install a cord on the dishwasher and plug it in, when I was finished I installed the kick plates on the dishwasher, (they were already off when I got to the job) Wouldent you know it, I got a call that night from the HO asking how to remove the kick plate, seems her cat was sleeping under the DW... pretty funny stuff...
 
Bob NH said:
I'll bet that if you just closed up the ladder and tipped it, the cat would have found its way safely to the floor.
Click to expand...

If it found the floor the hard way, you could have kicked it to the street before you left; thats what my employers always do when their done with me. Sorry, I was raised with dogs and still work with them, "Top Dogs" 441 shop logo.
 
e150club said:
my son was less then three he found his way to the top of my ladder my wife gets mad at me. i thought i might have a tradesman. no chance of that now he runs when he sees me take out the ladder he might have to help me.
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Mine tells me "Quit yelling at me!" when I tell him to help with house work.

The last time I told him I needed help with a ladder, I got up on the roof, did what I needed to do, and when it came time to come back down, he was no where to be seen, leaving me to precariously get down off the roof with no one down below to fall on :)

On a more serious note, if you want your child(ren) to follow in your footsteps, teaching them the personal value of what you do is a great tactic. When my parents had us kids build their last house, I looked at it as a way to learn how to build my own. Since then I've used what I learned as a teenager to do a variety of work both on my own houses and on others. I taught my son how to fish wire in walls when we wired the entire house for Cat5. He wasn't all that interested until he discovered that having Cat5 everywhere meant he could use a computer anywhere in the house (this was back when 802.11b was the most common home WiFi setup). He's been asking about having cable in his bedroom, in which case we'll head back into the attic and fish some RG6U into the same space as the Cat5 he has already.
 
I was on a service call once where I had to go up into an attic. When I was ready to come back down I look down to see the HO's four year old son at the top of my ladder and another one playing with my tools. After coaxing the kid down off the ladder, I politely explained to the mother what had happened and could she please keep the kids clear of the work area. She acted as if she was really put out but complied. Some people seem to think we are babysitters.
 
tmbrk said:
I was on a service call once where I had to go up into an attic. When I was ready to come back down I look down to see the HO's four year old son at the top of my ladder and another one playing with my tools. After coaxing the kid down off the ladder, I politely explained to the mother what had happened and could she please keep the kids clear of the work area. She acted as if she was really put out but complied. Some people seem to think we are babysitters.
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I'll second the motion on that! I have customers that show up to "JOB SITES" with children, next thing you know they're running around me as a swing a hole hog around, and carpenters with skill saws, and treating open framing as a jungle gym. Turn around and there one on the end of your drill bit....

Often these jobs have flooring removed, and I once had a customer bring a 3 year old youngun' was watching us walk across the joist tops on a running board, and decided to give it a try, walked right under the temp railing and fell acoss the joists. Me and another guy grabbed the scraped up little girl before she fell through to the floor below. Mom nowhere to be seen - on another floor with the GC on a walk-through. :mad: Since then I have made a policy that if situations like that are present - I pull off the job until they leave.
 
One camera-phone photo, faxed to social services, may temporarily but immediately find kids like that in child-protective custody.
 
Cats

Cats

This actually raises a good point about 'jobsite security.'

I was working in a crawl space once, when the family cat came down to check things out. Before I left, I made sure kitty was back in the house.

Not long after, I was in another crawl space. Now, while this customer had mentioned a cat, and was with me ... neither of us ever saw kitty. Later, he expressed concern that the cat was missing. Sure enough, a few days later, he heard mewing from the crawl space! Oops.

Often I've worked jobs where the family cat has watched my every move ... inspected every tool and part I've brought in .... Cats, however, are far sneakier than dogs. Tales abound of cats getting into walls, sometimes even being closed in when the patch is made :(

In some ways, our service call is the most exciting thing the 'little ones' have had happen in a very long time. And, much as we might be tempted at times ... we really don't want to close them up (cats or kids) up in the crawl space!
 
Pretty funny stuff

I once had a 24 ft. ladder perched again'st the house so I could repair the funace flue , and looked across the roof and my 3 yr. old son was looking at me from the top of the ladder and asked if he, too, could come up on the roof.
I sarted yelling for mom like I was 3
 
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