• (cs)

    A couple of years ago I bought a ReVoX A720 soaked with cat urine from eBay. It smelled horrible and of course, needed quite a lot of work to get it functional (and fresh) again.

    Seller playd dumb and refused to pay anything back.

  • Nappy (unregistered)

    I lost some nice fisher technic axels on account of one of my cats the rest still functions after a thorough rinse ;)

    And even though the bite marks were distinctly canine, the user had no idea why the corner of his laptop got missing so it's not just cats.....

  • (cs)

    Cats have interesting behavior(s). The problem is that like most animals, they need feedback (positive or negative) immediately after the good/bad behavior. Waiting even a minute can diminish the effectiveness of the result (if any is to be had). My cat (RIP Otis) needed a few behavior modifications for his "marking" problem. It took only two instances of me catching him "marking" and then pointing out (in plain terms) that this was unacceptable (methods left to the discretion of the reader) to let him know how I felt about this. From then on, it was smooth sailing. He warmed my lap for many years and was a wonderful companion that I retained after the breakup with my ex-wife (he stayed around, maybe a clue for the ex-wife). Unfortunately my sister-in-law likes more cats and thus the smell is a bit more pervasive, still another story.

  • (cs) in reply to Swedish tard
    Swedish tard:
    KattMan:
    My cat would never do this, he's afraid I would eat him, and I am sure suspects that is what happened to the last cat that wouldn't stop pissing on the carpet.

    And yes he is almost truely afraid this is the result, when he was a little kitten he tried to get food off my plate when I was eating on the couch, I promptly picked him up, stuck his head in my mouth, bit down and waited for him to relax and give in. Been the perfect cat ever since.

    I've done this to a few kittens as well, with an equally good result.

    Both of you're lying twice.

  • (cs) in reply to the beholder
    the beholder:
    Dave:
    Shenanigans.

    There is no way that a cat would take a leak anywhere that it likes to sleep.

    Having owned several cats over the last 25 years I'm inclined to agree. Some of them eventually marked nearby furniture but sleeping spots were always off-limits.

    Of course, just because the customer said the cat slept on the laptop it doesn't mean it ever did. Most likely that was just his excuse for the signs that a cat had touched the device.

    Maybe customer piss on the laptop?

  • (cs) in reply to Nagesh
    Nagesh:

    Maybe customer piss on the laptop?

    Maybe we need a Mythbusters episode for this. The corrosiveness of urine from various mammals.

  • (cs) in reply to Nagesh
    Nagesh:
    Swedish tard:
    KattMan:
    My cat would never do this, he's afraid I would eat him, and I am sure suspects that is what happened to the last cat that wouldn't stop pissing on the carpet.

    And yes he is almost truely afraid this is the result, when he was a little kitten he tried to get food off my plate when I was eating on the couch, I promptly picked him up, stuck his head in my mouth, bit down and waited for him to relax and give in. Been the perfect cat ever since.

    I've done this to a few kittens as well, with an equally good result.

    Both of you're lying twice.

    Not lying at all, I spoke to him in his language, "I'm bigger, stronger and I can eat you. Now do you want to submit and be a good cat or dinner." It's amazing how well animals respond to instinctual provocations.

  • (cs)

    I guess you could say...

    It was catastrophic.

  • Boager (unregistered)

    Looks like this was a cat 3 incident....

    also, Doesn't Cat Piss glow in the dark?

  • Paul Neumann (unregistered) in reply to herby
    herby:
    ... It took only two instances of me catching him "marking" and then pointing out (in plain terms) that this was unacceptable (methods left to the discretion of the reader) to let him know how I felt about this. ...

    You actually peed on the cat?

  • Jonesy (unregistered) in reply to KattMan
    KattMan:
    My cat would never do this, he's afraid I would eat him, and I am sure suspects that is what happened to the last cat that wouldn't stop pissing on the carpet.

    And yes he is almost truely afraid this is the result, when he was a little kitten he tried to get food off my plate when I was eating on the couch, I promptly picked him up, stuck his head in my mouth, bit down and waited for him to relax and give in. Been the perfect cat ever since.

    You must have a reasonably large mouth

  • Al Alleem (unregistered) in reply to Severity One
    Severity One:
    Rather than keeping his cat away from his laptop, perhaps he should clean the kitty litter a bit more often.

    We have three cats (the fourth one is MIA) and they do crazy things (after all, they're cats), but they never peed or puked on any piece of electronics.

    to the best of your knowledge

  • Dr Harry (unregistered) in reply to da Doctah
    da Doctah:
    the beholder:
    Dave:
    Shenanigans.

    There is no way that a cat would take a leak anywhere that it likes to sleep.

    Having owned several cats over the last 25 years I'm inclined to agree. Some of them eventually marked nearby furniture but sleeping spots were always off-limits.

    Of course, just because the customer said the cat slept on the laptop it doesn't mean it ever did. Most likely that was just his excuse for the signs that a cat had touched the device.

    Agreeance. I've got a colony of a dozen or more feral cats that like my patio as a dormitory because there are lots of flat, cushioned surfaces. But it's also covered, so any smell of urine accumulates and makes it unpleasant for all concerned. It took them only a short time to discover this.

    I've watched through my kitchen window as one of the sleeping horde stirs, rises, stretches a few times and then gets out of his comfy chair and wanders away. Five minutes later, the same cat strolls back in, climbs up in the same chair and goes back to sleep. I don't know where they're going to the toilet, but I know it's "elsewhere".

    Cats in numbers are different to cats on their own: because of the territorial thing, the cats know not to piss where lots of them hang around, this is just cause for anger.
    A lone cat, however, owns everything in sight and pisses wherever (s)he's too lazy to get up from....

  • gary B (unregistered) in reply to andrew
    andrew:
    Back when I worked in hardware testing/repair for satellite tv set-top boxes, we got a batch of failed units that had been in use in the field. One particular unit reeked of cat pee, and even stunk up the lab before we opened the FedEx box. I ended up foregoing our test procedures, opting instead to use a pair of pliers to carry the unit to the dumpster. The bright side of the whole thing was that I got to use the phrase "catastrophic feline urinary saturation" in my report.
    I'm going to retain 'CFUS' as a useful acronym for the future! :D I can imagine the faces of people when I tell them the expansion. "Sorry, your unit has suffered from CFUS and will have to be scrapped." "What's CFUS?" "atastrophic feline urinary saturation." "But what's that ... Oh, ewww. Toss it - toss it fast!"
  • secundum (unregistered) in reply to markj
    markj:
    We once had three male cats, all neutered, and they did thousands of dollars worth of damage

    I hope it was still worth to have a fucking animal in the house [sarcastically].

  • Major DoucheBag (unregistered)

    Of course, revenge is a dish best served cold... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePNdcdNm9fY

  • Meep (unregistered) in reply to SoWhat
    SoWhat:
    I am sorry, I miss TRWTF in todays story. Are people with cats TRWTF ?

    Asked and answered:

    KattMan:
    My cat would never do this, he's afraid I would eat him, and I am sure suspects that is what happened to the last cat that wouldn't stop pissing on the carpet.
  • Really (unregistered) in reply to Steve The Cynic

    You must be a fun person at parties....

  • (cs) in reply to KattMan
    KattMan:
    My cat would never do this, he's afraid I would eat him, and I am sure suspects that is what happened to the last cat that wouldn't stop pissing on the carpet.

    And yes he is almost truely afraid this is the result, when he was a little kitten he tried to get food off my plate when I was eating on the couch, I promptly picked him up, stuck his head in my mouth, bit down and waited for him to relax and give in. Been the perfect cat ever since.

    Short of physical violence, nothing gets a cat's attention faster or more thoroughly than a convincing approximation of a feline hiss. I was a little surprised myself at the intensity of the response.

  • Normal Behaviour Enthusiast (unregistered) in reply to KattMan
    KattMan:
    I promptly picked him up, stuck his head in my mouth, bit down and waited for him to relax and give in.
    Freaking weirdo!!
  • Dirk (unregistered)

    The perfect soundtrack for today's story: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wm_Avc6aacw

    And of course TRWTF is akismet.

  • Norman Diamond (unregistered)

    Ours likes to eat cables (LAN cables, power cables, 100 volt AC power cables for a TV and a floor fan, etc.). She throws up anywhere. But she knows how to use a litter box for other excretions. This is the first time I've heard of a cat pissing in its own bed.

    Some years ago I posted a mock advertisement.

    For sale: LAN cable

    Formerly cat 5, which meant it could handle 100 megabits per second. Now just cat, meaning it was bit.

    Conditions of sale: Cable is returnable if you no longer need it. Cat is not returnable, no matter how much you decide you don't need her. Cat is not severable from contract of sale, no matter how much severing she does.

  • Staticsan (unregistered) in reply to Swedish tard
    Swedish tard:
    KattMan:
    My cat would never do this, he's afraid I would eat him, and I am sure suspects that is what happened to the last cat that wouldn't stop pissing on the carpet.

    And yes he is almost truely afraid this is the result, when he was a little kitten he tried to get food off my plate when I was eating on the couch, I promptly picked him up, stuck his head in my mouth, bit down and waited for him to relax and give in. Been the perfect cat ever since.

    I've done this to a few kittens as well, with an equally good result.

    I've been part of house-training a kitten. After one too many inappropriate urination, the kitten got its face rubbed in it and then banished to the laundry (there the litter box actually was) for a short time. Said cat never pissed in the wrong place ever again. And she never held it against me, either! :-D

    I am still quietly impressed that worked so well.

  • default_ex (unregistered)

    Had to get rid of a cat for doing similar things. It's not at all strange that the metal surfaces corroded so rapidly when you consider the factors involved.

    1. There is a minute electrical current that passes through the system when it's turned off as long as a power source is attached (battery or charge cable).

    2. Screws a usually exposed to the ground lines in a PCB, this is so that when it's attached to metal casing with other PCBs a common ground can be established.

    Ammonia can corrode alkali metals well enough on it's own, if you place a computer case screw in ammonia and leave it for a few days you'll see corrosion. Use a 9v battery (don't do this without proper safety gear), and it speeds up so fast you can see it progress. I'm certain it's battery is significantly more powerful than a 9v.

  • (cs)

    We lost a laptop once because it became home to an ant colony; nice and warm and snug. But the vendor fixed it OK.

  • (cs) in reply to secundum
    secundum:
    markj:
    We once had three male cats, all neutered, and they did thousands of dollars worth of damage

    I hope it was still worth to have a fucking animal in the house [sarcastically].

    If there were neutered, they can hardly be called 'fucking' animals.

    We have had two neutered male cats for several years now, and I have never seen this problem. Only if the litter box for some reason wasn't cleaned properly, they might do 'something' on the floor just outside the box, but apart from this, I've never seen them pee on anything - and we do have several laptops and other types of equipment in the house.

  • Norman Diamond (unregistered) in reply to ochrist
    ochrist:
    secundum:
    markj:
    We once had three male cats, all neutered, and they did thousands of dollars worth of damage
    I hope it was still worth to have a fucking animal in the house [sarcastically].
    If there were neutered, they can hardly be called 'fucking' animals.
    Wanna bet? It's just that nothing comes from their coming.
  • Anonymous (unregistered) in reply to Spewin Coffee
    Spewin Coffee:
    "He then wrote up a report for HR on the employee on maintaining a sanitary work environment including corporate equipment and HR subsequently took the cost of the laptop out of the employee's paycheck as all sensible businesses would.

    Yes, oh please yes.

    The employee learns their lesson and just shoots the cat."

    Even more yes.

  • Ollabelle (unregistered) in reply to jkupski

    The cat may have been marking the computer, saying "I live here, too. Pay attention to me and not this black box."

  • Haz Nohow (unregistered) in reply to Ollabelle

    More likely "This laptop is boring and like so last-year. Get me one of those iPads with the fly-squelching game."

  • (cs) in reply to Steve The Cynic
    Steve The Cynic:
    It wouldn't actually be a smell of carbon at all, since carbon doesn't have a meaningful vapour pressure until you get past 3000 kelvin, so there's nothing to smell. At 3400K or so, it's a bit warm for anyone to want to put inside their nose...

    More likely, it would have been a smell of scorched plastic, and yes, I agree, cat piss would normally smell stronger than that.[...]

    Yeah, it's guilt by association. When you burn things that have carbon in them, there's always a whole bunch of organics mixed in. Burning those releases the organics, and makes some other organics too. They all smell a certain way and somehow we call it "carbon smell".

  • (cs) in reply to Jonesy
    Jonesy:
    KattMan:
    My cat would never do this, he's afraid I would eat him, and I am sure suspects that is what happened to the last cat that wouldn't stop pissing on the carpet.

    And yes he is almost truely afraid this is the result, when he was a little kitten he tried to get food off my plate when I was eating on the couch, I promptly picked him up, stuck his head in my mouth, bit down and waited for him to relax and give in. Been the perfect cat ever since.

    You must have a reasonably large mouth

    Look like it. He tell tall tales all time.

  • (cs) in reply to Nagesh
    Nagesh:
    Jonesy:
    You must have a reasonably large mouth

    Look like it. He tell tall tales all time.

    A kitten isn't very big, he's big now, so if he slips back to bad habits I'll have to find another way to correct him.

  • Agention (unregistered) in reply to scott
    scott:
    Had a cat puke on a laptop once. Cat puke is surprisingly corrosive.

    No amount of corrosivity in cat puke would surprise me.

  • Dan (unregistered) in reply to Steve The Cynic

    I can tell you for a fact that cat urine is incredibly stinky. I had a roommate once with a cat that would pee on the burners of the stove (when they were off, of course.) The first time he did this, we didn't know, so when I turned on the burner to make some dinner, the reek of smoking cat urine was unbelievable. I also had a cat use my old Apple II as a litter box. Again, the stink was impressive.

  • Craig (unregistered)

    I used to support point-of-sale equipment for a large restaurant chain. There was one NCR computer in the back of the house running Linux, used as a terminal server for NCR or IBM dumb terminals, printers, etc. It was an original Pentium usually with 32MB of RAM, and 2X Maxtor hard drives with a script that mirrored one to the other nightly. NCR used to build a hell of a box, as these things were all 10+ years old, none of the fans worked, they ran 24/7 with no maintenance in a greasy, dusty environment that routinely was 110 degrees or hotter in the summer, and even a hiccup from one was rare.

    I was called out to the site because the whole system wasn't responding, though the PC in the back was up, though there were errors every few seconds complaining that it couldn't connect to the terminal server board. I got to the site and the machine was filthy, gritty, and smelled musty. I pulled the cover and discovered a family of mice had been living in the machine for some time, judging from the hundreds of mouse turds in the case, on the motherboard, and everything else within. They'd been peeing everywhere too, and apparently this didn't disturb the system too much until finally it corroded through one of the traces on a daughtercard that hosted the PCI terminal server board. I swapped the whole system out, keeping only the drives, and washed my hands for about 15 minutes.

  • Craig (unregistered)

    I grew up with cats, and have pretty much always had a cat. While my cats have pretty much always been barf-o-matics, they have not peed/pooped anywhere but their litter boxes. The exception being that if you neglect a litter box enough, the cat will make its displeasure known by pooping next to it or elsewhere.

    Whether it's a cat, dog, or child, you need to observe some rules and set some boundaries: If the cat does something that displeases you, you need to immediately discipline the cat, though not with violence. Same as with a child.

    You get out what you put in: If you always f**k with the cat, tease it, annoy it, etc., it will give you back that attitude. If you treat it as a friend, and with respect, it will treat you with respect. If you treat it solely as a toy for your amusement, don't expect it to care if it displeases you.

    Cats, like humans, need some attention and affection. If you always neglect the animal and push it away when it's affectionate, expect it to act out, just like your spouse would, or you would if your spouse always pushed you away. On the other hand, if you always lavish it with attention and it can do no wrong, it will feel like it's the head of the household and act like a spoiled sh*t, just as any child with no discipline would.

  • Geoff (unregistered) in reply to Steve The Cynic

    The screws probably aren't stainless steel, but rather zinc-plated carbon steel. Cat urine contains ammonia which can discolor zinc plating in a matter of hours, I think by turning the thin zinc carbonate layer into zinc sulfide.

  • (cs) in reply to Spewin Coffee
    Spewin Coffee:
    "After thinking that the smell was ammonia-like, it dawned on him.

    Cat urine."

    I'm thinking there are a few sentences distinctly and disturbingly missing somewhere around here.

    "It dawned on him: Cat urine. He immediately got up, ran to the bathroom, vomited, and washed his hand thoroughly. After donning a biohazard suit, proceeded to bag the entire laptop and sterilize the place, disposing of the equipment in the biohazard waste bins that all sensible IT departments have. He then wrote up a report for HR on the employee on maintaining a sanitary work environment including corporate equipment and HR subsequently took the cost of the laptop out of the employee's paycheck as all sensible businesses would. The employee learns their lesson and just shoots the cat."

    A bit extreme. After you've charged the employee for all the above, all you need to do is to convince him he needs to put the laptop away when he's not using it, if necessary into a part of the dwelling to which the cat(s) has/have no access. And if there is no such location you are more than a fraction sad.

    As the resigned sharer of my house with four felines, I am more than minimally conscious of the necessity of ensuring that laptops are never left open and unattended, and as for my work laptops, when using it at home I make damn sure the cats are kept out of the room completely.

    Perhaps the real WTF is that this guy works from home without having a dedicated office in which to work. A sensible company would require this to be the case, purely from the viewpoint of limiting any legal consequences of Stuff Going Wrong.

  • (cs) in reply to pitchingchris
    pitchingchris:
    Nagesh:

    Maybe customer piss on the laptop?

    Maybe we need a Mythbusters episode for this. The corrosiveness of urine from various mammals.

    A pertinent question is: Is ladies' water more potent than men's water? Wonder how you'd set up such an experiment? "Darling, would you, er, ..."

  • Neil (unregistered) in reply to scott
    scott:
    Had a cat puke on a laptop once. Cat puke is surprisingly corrosive.
    More surprising than any other source of concentrated hydrochloric acid?
  • hoofie (unregistered) in reply to andrew

    Er...that was probably mine. My cat who has since departed this Earth, used to sleep on the Sky box because it was warm. I kept chasing him off but I'm sure he used to sleep on it when I wasn't there.

    Anyway one day the box lost one of the tuners and the bloke who came to look at it replaced it but suggested that I might want to keep the cat away - turned out the poor moggie has been sneezing on it also....

  • Omega (unregistered) in reply to Spewin Coffee

    Overreact much. It's cat piss not Anthrax.

  • Paul J (unregistered)

    I had a similar experience. My cousin's cat peep on his Macbook Pro. Only the once, and apparently out of spite.

    The laptop is at my place while I try to rescue data off it. It still runs, but gives of a pungent smell every time you turn it on. It is also very very interesting to my cat, who sniffs it constantly!

  • Owen (unregistered)

    shit be nasty. after a while it crystalizes. last time I moved my shit I had to wipe down some items that had a dried, crystalized, yellow and very nasty smelling substance. Most fo them I threw out.

  • not necessarily (unregistered) in reply to Craig

    Most likely its not a mistreated cat, just getting on a bit. Kidney problems and incontinence are common in very elderly cats.

  • Nebular (unregistered) in reply to Steve The Cynic
    Steve The Cynic:
    What I want to know is how the screws got visible quantities of corrosion, even in the presence of the sort of stuff that's normally in urine, in only a weekend...

    You've never dealt with cat urine on electronics before have you. My wife's incontinent cat went on a network card I left on the floor. In a day the board was powder and the plate was covered in a thick cake of rust.

    There's a reason people hate cat urine, it's destructive.

  • Bob Johnson (unregistered) in reply to Craig

    That's idiotic. If you discipline a cat, it's not going to know why your doing that, it just knows you're treating it like crap and to be scared of you for freaking out at it. As far as it knows, you attacked it for no reason.

    It's like the idiots that think rubbing a dogs nose in it's poop, when it poops somewhere it shouldn't, somehow makes the dog realize what's going on.

  • Vincent Vancalbergh (unregistered) in reply to Craig
    Craig:
    I grew up with cats, and have pretty much always had a cat. While my cats have pretty much always been barf-o-matics, they have not peed/pooped anywhere but their litter boxes. The exception being that if you neglect a litter box enough, the cat will make its displeasure known by pooping next to it or elsewhere.

    Whether it's a cat, dog, or child, you need to observe some rules and set some boundaries: If the cat does something that displeases you, you need to immediately discipline the cat, though not with violence. Same as with a child.

    You get out what you put in: If you always f**k with the cat, tease it, annoy it, etc., it will give you back that attitude. If you treat it as a friend, and with respect, it will treat you with respect. If you treat it solely as a toy for your amusement, don't expect it to care if it displeases you.

    Cats, like humans, need some attention and affection. If you always neglect the animal and push it away when it's affectionate, expect it to act out, just like your spouse would, or you would if your spouse always pushed you away. On the other hand, if you always lavish it with attention and it can do no wrong, it will feel like it's the head of the household and act like a spoiled sh*t, just as any child with no discipline would.

    I agree. Similarly I've always had either a cat or a dog (often switching to the other when the other one kicked the bucket). You train 'em well and they're a joy. neglect or abuse them and they're a pain in the ass.

    Captcha: refoveo The referee's aveoli?

  • (cs)

    I remember hearing a very similar story back in the late 90's, except it was a pet rabbit rather than a cat

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