Why I won't change switches in Canberra

[Hawkmoon]

A few years back I was on holiday in Oz (visiting brother who had emigrated there).
We were sitting in his lounge and the lights began coming on dim and flickering (switch off but sound of arcing) - he said they’d been doing that occasionally for a few days.


I said it’s probably a duff switch but I’d have a look at the wires behind just in case - so switched power off and unscrewed/pulled back the switch to find the back box FULL of ants (dozens), not the sissy little black ants you get here but inch long, orange scary bassstards all crawling over each other.


It took my brain about 1 second to process what I was seeing and like a big girl I yelled and jumped back about 6ft into the room (bro thought I’d had a belt off the switch lol).


The ants then began running from the switch in all directions across the white wall (like a scene out of a horror film) - We had to round them up with dustpans and chuck them outside.


After all this I checked the switch and across the back (bridging the 2 terminals) was a mass of congealed and burnt ant remains - once cleaned and buffed up switch worked fine - no more probs.


[FONT=&quot]Probably my scariest creepy crawly moment :whatchutalkingabout[/FONT]

 

[dan86]

lol! there's a first for everything I guess. I can't imagine what that even looked like.

 

[Marvo]

Lol, we often find snakes, very big spiders and lizards in outdoor enclosures and also get big ants indoors as well. If one of the ants bites you then you know about it, it's similar to getting stung by a wasp. I have a special pair of gauntlet type gloves that I use for snake and spider wrangling when we've got to remove them. A few other species we have regular run-ins with are porcupines and moles.....and not just normal moles, these things will take a piece out of you if you get too close.


Cape Moles


Dog Vs Porcupine

 

[Hawkmoon]

Yeah, I since found out that ozzy ones bite pretty nasty also -

Poor dog lol

 

[Darkwood]

BIG GIRLS BLOUSE!!!!..... Although I jumped a mile when several cockroaches launched at me as I pulled a fridge out... its just the processing time to realise what is happening ... ..wonder how many ants per volts you get?

 

[Robotstar5]

..wonder how many ants per volts you get?

That would be VA VoltAnts?

 

[Robotstar5]

..wonder how many ants per volts you get?

That would be VA VoltAnts?

and if there were thousands of them kVA

 

[gutterball]

is that your dog?

 

[Marvo]

Nope, not my dog, just a random mutt that showed an interest in a porcupine. It's not me wrestling the moles either, I value all my fingers and won't get that close to them, they've got massive razor shard teeth they're faster than they look and they get very aggressive if you get too close. I usually use a garden spade to get them out of the way.

 

[Hawkmoon]

BIG GIRLS BLOUSE!!!!..... Although I jumped a mile when several cockroaches launched at me as I pulled a fridge out... its just the processing time to realise what is happening ... ..wonder how many ants per volts you get?

Well I would estimate that the lights (when on under fault) were at about 1/3 luminance so say 80V...

That means 160V dropped across the cooked ants - I would estimate (not easy) from the mess on the back of the switch that there were about 10 ants...

...16V drop across each ant lol

Edit: Though they were in 2 or 3 parallel layers so perhaps a bit more

 

[fanta]

You sure they were ants, could have been baby land crabs in a "Crabtree"switch ?????