Lazy Utility Providers & Wind Storms

Phones

Many of our services/utilities still come in off poles; power, phones, and cable. When we first moved in the phones attached to the front of the house right under the front porch over the front door, while all cable and power came in on the side and hid discretely behind a little pop-out nook. The other issue was it came from two different poles, a violation of city ordnance.

Also, I’m not sure why the phones came in at that spot any way. From the old wiring in the basement, it was clear they came into the side of the house at some point. Even if new lines needed to be added, we have a completely open basement, new wires can staples to the floor joists.  In addition to the line coming to the front of the house and the box being mounted by the door, out of the three lines running down the wall, under the porch and into the house, only one actually went into the house. It wasn’t even an issue of “here are these 2 unused lines here in my basement”, it was one line running into the house being used and two lines hanging out loose in the dirt under the porch.

It just so happens on the day we painted the house, a “horrible” “wind storm” came and cleanly cut the phone line off the side of the house, spooled it up, tacked it to the telephone pole across the street, then carefully unscrewed all the hooks and hardware still left attached to the porch. One doozy of a specifically tasked “wind storm.”

When the tech came out to resolve the situation, he was more than willing to bring in the phone line from the same pole and to the same spot on the house as the other services.

Cable

Being in the tech industry, I deal with ISPs all the time. Phones and cable companies. Usually my frustration comes from either generalized service failure or techs who are under trained, over booked, have stats they need to keep up, while working for a company doing it damnedest to avoid a liability suit.

I understand that most homes do not have conduit in the walls. I understand that most homes have finished basements and it’s very hard to get cabling through the walls in the house, but when you come across a 1920’s era home with full basement access, use it!

Alas, that’s not what they did. To get a cable line up into the kitchen, rather than running into the basement (or splitting off the line that already went into the basement) they ran a line along the site of the house, put a hole in the wall and caulked it up. We don’t need that line. I got rid of it. Patched the holes and touched up the paint.

The hole from the outside of the house.The hole from the inside.