OK, today another drain tile lid flip. We made a decision yesterday on this. We’re going to have the installers return and screw down all seven lids. Sure, it’ll mean I have to unscrew them to clear out the debris. Whatever.
The guy we called said this is happening because of an over-eager squirrel. That may be the case.
Let’s see if squirrels carry screwdrivers.
I have searched the internet for a solution to this problem. All I ever find are links to my blog posts about it.
Some of you may remember last year’s drain grate flipping saga in which something removed one of our back yard tile drain grates nearly every day for a while last fall. It’s happening again! This time it occurred during a pretty fierce heat wave which is still ongoing. It was so hot, the videos and photos we got were really hazy.
That adventure began in late September of 2022 and went on past the middle of October. I wrote a few posts about the saga. We set up a critter cam to see if we could get it on video. We caught deer running across the yard and that’s it, except for a UFO. Check our YouTube “Caught in the Critter Cam Lights” on October 17, 2022.
Yesterday, we noticed the drain grate was off again, after a nearly a year of no problems with it. Now, a couple of months ago, a couple of other drain grates popped off, but it looked like the explanation was heavy rainfall. The pipes were full of debris and the lid was very close to the edge of the pipes.
This time, the same lid that popped off last year popped off again and it was a replay of what looks like an ongoing mystery.
I’m not ready to set up the critter cam just yet. I’m a little unsure of whether it’ll work OK in triple digit heat.
So far so good. After I affixed the drain grate to the corrugated base with a worm gear adjustable clamp, this morning the lid is still on.
I also posted a tiny zombie guard. He’ll chew up anything that tries to come up from below or break in from above. He’s not fussy about what he eats. He doesn’t sleep. He’s not scared of anything. Bad weather doesn’t bother him. He says the same thing Beetlejuice says:
“I’ll eat anything you want me to eat, I’ll swallow anything you want me to swallow; so, come on down, I’ll chew on a dog!”
Go Retire Psychiatrist 