Monitor-eating office cat

Posted by OinkyConfidence@reddit | talesfromtechsupport | View on Reddit | 23 comments

Small office customer. Sold a new, bezel-less 24" LCD monitor to said customer. Customer takes it on-site and hooks it up, all works well. It sits on a counter by a large window.

Customer calls me a few days later. Says the new monitor is dead. The power light is on, but no signal. I have him try a different cable, different port on the PC, etc., but nothing. So we process a replacement, swap it out, and chalk it up to being DOA.

Customer calls me again a few days later still. Says you're not going to believe this, but this second new monitor is doing the same thing as the first. At this point I'm thinking their office must have a power problem or something that's killing monitors. But I decide I'll take a truck roll and see for myself.

I go on-site and bring a third new monitor with me just in case. I open the door and see a very pretty cat walking on the floor. I look at the old, original monitor which was replaced by the new 24". It's an old 17" LCD from a decade ago and had thick, beefy bezels as monitors from that era did. I see some bite marks at the top corners, but they're just on the bezel so no actual screen damage.

It's beginning to add up. Their office cat had been chewing the corners of the old thick-bezel'ed monitor. Which was fine, until they got a new monitor that had no bezels at all, and all it took was one bite from the cat to pierce the LCD itself. Twice. Once they were made aware, it was easy to see the teeth mark in the corner of the LCD of the new monitor.

Customer ended up getting a used 22" monitor with thick bezels. Cat still chews the corners.