So my (relatively) new Trane heat pump mysteriously quits working. Again. First time it was a spider that wisely chose to end its life between the conductors in the contactor that brings in the compressor. A fun chuckle for the service guy and I'm a hundred-and-some-odd bucks poorer. This time, the symptoms were the same, so I thought I'd check it out myself.
Pulled the disconnect and the service cover, and sure enough, there's an earwig's ass sticking out of the contactor, and a literal pile of dead earwigs littering the area. A little brushing, poking, and scraping later, I button it back up and dang if it doesn't work.
I think I earned a beer.
Haha nice. Beer deserved for sure.
At a former job we had a problem with the alarm system going off a couple nights a week. The service guy found a spider living in one of the motion sensors. Apparently it would crawl around in front of the eye of the motion sensor and trip the alarm. We removed the spider and sealed the case with silicone and no more problems.
wbjones
PowerDork
6/15/13 9:14 a.m.
so basically what you had was a $100+ training session 
My son just had one of those training sessions and learned how to work a snake in the plumbing.
I told him it was easy, but he wanted a "professional" to do it so they wouldn't screw it up.
When he left he said "There's no way I'm paying anybody to do that again, it's just too easy!"
My comment? It was just a smile.
We have a big backup generator at work that we run every two weeks. More than once I've heard a squeeling noise and after shutting it down its always a possom. They love to sleep in there right next to the engine fan. The best part is always the cleanup.
