RATS! Portable set wasteland!

[Charlie]

Today, I drove to Vidor... about 45 minutes away... to answer a CL ad about a bunch of antique sets for 25 dollars. I could see in the photo they looked pretty rough. I figured that I would get a few good CRT's out of the bunch... throw away the rest.

I get there, and it looks like no one has lived in the house for a while. The guy drove from Houston... come to find out the house was his father's, and used to run a TV business back in the day. All of the TV's and several other old items were recently found in the attic.

When I walked into the garage, that familiar yucky smell hit me pretty good... dead rat! God, it was GROSS!

I give the guy the 25 bucks, and his grandson is helping me load these sets in the back of the truck. Just couldn't get away from that smell! Got 3 of the sets in there, and he says, "Wow! Look at those maggots! I think they came out of that blue set!" Guys, I've seen maggots now and then thru the years, but let me tell you.... I've never seen them like this! They were huge! Come to find out, that dead rat smell was coming from the blue Motorola!

All I could think was GROSS!

I get home and get the tester out. I have all the sets on the ground behind the truck.... plugging them in one at a time... and not a single one was any good!! Even cranking them up to 8 volts only brought the meter halfway up into the "bad" range.

Actually, there are still a few chances. The RCA deluxe model has a different plug... I need to find one for it... but not gonna hold my breath. There's a small portable on the tailgate... I think it's a Commadore... looks like it takes the same plug. Threre's also that baby Hitachi... I'm not even going to bother with that one.

So, it looks like this trip was a bust! Nothing worth saving... nothing but rat droppings in all sets, and dead rats with maggots in at least one set. What a let-down!

Man, you have no idea how many times I washed my hands since dealing with these. Hell, right after I left the guy's house, I stopped at a gas station restroom to wash up!! Then I went in and bought hand sanitizer... smeared it all over my hands, the steering wheel, and the stick-shift!

Thank goodness I live on a decent sized piece of land... I don't have to keep them near the house!! I can put them out in the woods!!

What sucks even more... now I have to get rid of them all. Hmmmm.... maybe I could put an ad on CL tonight!!