Customer's pet iguana shorted out a panel in Phoenix

I mean, I've seen mice chew wires, squirrels do dumb stuff, but this one takes it. Last Thursday I get a call about flickering lights in a house near Camelback. Whole living room circuit keeps tripping. I pop the panel cover and there's this dried up iguana draped across the main lug. It crawled in through a hole in the garage wall. Owner said it was his teenager's pet that escaped 3 months ago. I charged $185 for the service call plus a new breaker. Has anyone else dealt with lizards or reptiles getting into gear? I almost want to start checking for scales before I pull the cover.

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joel_young1mo ago

The dried up iguana draped across the main lug. That visual is gonna stick with me. I had a call last summer where a gecko got into a panel and fried itself between the bus bar and a breaker. It didn't trip anything though, just made this weird burning smell and the homeowner thought the house was on fire. I pulled the cover and found this little crispy critter halfway melted onto the plastic. Cost me an extra hour to scrape it off and clean the contacts because the mess was worse than just swapping parts. I charged for the cleanup too, told the guy we now offer "lizard removal" as a specialty.