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Watch out for weirdos


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This was gleaned from a code inspectors forum. True story, not urban legend.

I had a early evening call from a customer regarding a water leak in his attic. He was not home when I arrived, but the ladder was in the garage and the scuttle hole was open. I noticed that the ceiling was completely drenched and all the drywall screws were visible. I turned the water on slightly and then went up there to check the leak.

In Scottsdale, we have home fire sprinkler systems. Usually they are installed with CPVC pipe, but this one used copper. The leak was in a copper fire line, but it appeared to have been made with a 1/4" drill from underneath it, since the exit hole on top was burred out. I could not see how a drill could have been used on it because there was only about 4 inches between it and the sheetrock ceiling.

Anyway, by this time the owner came home and I asked if anyone had been working in the attic that afternoon, and he implied that there had been someone up there. He then called his father to tell him what had happened, and then the father asked to speak to me. When I told him about the hole drilled in the pipe, he asked me, "Could it have been a .22 bullet?". Lights flashed in my head, and I said, "Yes."

I then discussed the situation with the customer and he told me that he thought he had heard someone in the attic or on the roof, so he used his .22 automatic and shot holes in the ceiling, and by implication, the roof. Those spots I thought were drywall screws were the .22 holes, about 20 of them. three shots went through the air conditioner and at least one was directly beneath the coil. And one had penetrated the fire line almost perfectly in the center of it.

I was then glad that I was not in the attic when he returned home.

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Ahh.. memories... I had three .22 bullets enter my home, by a drive-by shooter, aiming at the home behind me where the boy apparently owed his drug supplier a bundle. One passed through the rear hardboard siding, the upper hall bathroom drywall and would have made a paraplegic of one of my kids had they been sitting on the can. It continued on through the closed lauan bathroom door and lodged itself in the corner-bead of the half-high wall of the upper stairway. The other two passed completely through the asphalt shingles, roof sheathing, eaves and drywall of my daughter's bedroom over the garage, to lodge in the drywall on the other side of the room. And, we lived in an upscale community of 3000 homes with 32 miles of bike trails and a 1700 acre lake. Who'd have ever thought?

I've also found two stray bullet slugs lodged into roofing on inspections while walking roofs in the downtown area. The freaky thing about that is they weren't level shots. They had clearly come down out of the sky - a missed shot - to bury them self in the shingles. Imagine what that would do to the ole' head bone...

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I looked at a repair job this past deer season on a beautiful house in the woods on the crest of a ravine. A 12ga deer slug went through a thermo pane window, clipped an ornament off the christmas tree, grazed the casing on a window on the adjacent wall, went through the mull post, and lodged itself in extension jamb on the opposite side, flying through about 10-12 feet of the living room. My customer had just walked into the room as the bullet entered only a few feet in front of him.

The hunter was tracked down by the DEC, and it was determined via GPS that the round traveled nearly 700 yards through fairly dense woods, over two ravines, and changed direction at least once before coming to rest indoors.

Tom

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They had clearly come down out of the sky - a missed shot - to bury them self in the shingles. Imagine what that would do to the ole' head bone...

Reminds me of a friend I played baseball with when I was about 10.

He didint show up for practice one day. Turns out someone had shot into the air with a .22 and it hit the back of his neck. Although he wasn't paralyzed, he lost alot of "control", almost as if he had had a stroke, and to think he was only 10.

Shotguns up in the air, Rifles down low.

Matt

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A cpl of yrs ago a New Years celebrant on the street in New Awlins was killed by a bullet that dropped vertically from the sky and pierced the top of the skull.

I can see that. The slugs I found in the shingles were completely lodged to the rear in the roofing and seathing. I had to dg them out with my Gerber.

When I lived in an 100 year old log cabin, as a tenant, on a farm out in the sticks of Loudoun County, Virginia, I used to watch pheasant hunters out in the fields around our home and hear the bird-shot, from missed shots pelt our standing seam tin roof. Happened every season.

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