Is there a mouse in your machine?

[Wild Bill]

Mouses head stuck in the fuser gears on a Sharp SF-8100 . It made me very queasy but I cleaned it up...machine was operational afterward.
I'm pretty sure they carry diseases and shit so use gloves.

[mikadonovan]

I had an old analog Mita that was getting dark areas on the copies in different places as originals were fed through the DF. At first I was flabbergasted, then upon a close inspection of the scanner cavity I seen a mouse tail sticking out under the lens block cover. The little bastard had been running around inside while the light source unit was scanning. I skewered him with an ice pick and held him up for the women in the office to see. There was a little screaming and EVERYONE left the room within just a few seconds. Damn comical.

[NeoMatrix]

I had an old analog Mita that was getting dark areas on the copies in different places as originals were fed through the DF. At first I was flabbergasted, then upon a close inspection of the scanner cavity I seen a mouse tail sticking out under the lens block cover. The little bastard had been running around inside while the light source unit was scanning. I skewered him with an ice pick and held him up for the women in the office to see. There was a little screaming and EVERYONE left the room within just a few seconds. Damn comical.

Had a gecko do the same. He was inside the lense housing moving back an forward. The little blighter drove me wacko trying to trouble
shoot a moving black shadow on the print out. What the ???

[SwisSeV]

I skewered him with an ice pick and held him up for the women in the office to see.

Damn dude, you crazy!

[Spikessong]

Our dispatcher had a sense of humor, so didn't tell me what the problem was - just sent me out. I got to the small business and the lady employees were all huddled against a wall, staring at the Savin 770. I asked what the problem was and they all started talking at once. I lifted the ADF and the mouse was inside the optics compartment darting around, desperately looking for a hiding place. I must have jumped a foot in the air. After getting over my initial shock I got the glass platen off, then made a ramp using a stack of paper. Bingo! Within just a few minutes the mouse happily took the ramp and fled out of the copier, down the desk and out to the warehouse. I was really glad I didn't have to kill the poor thing. I put everything back together and charged them the $95/hour.

[exCSER]

I got a call on a xerox 9900 (120 copies per minute) machine in a warehouse. This model used a large vacuum bag as part of the cleaning system, and a mouse had used the bag as a nest: chewed through the side and made himself at home. When I turned the machine on, the vacuum motor started and took the little dude and all of his droppings through for a ride to the center of the bag. It took about a month and a full can of Lysol to get rid of the smell.

[Iowatech]

I posted this one elsewhere, but years ago the first call I went to on a Monday was for blurry copies from a 3M 536 or 537. That particular series had a moving platen, and on this machine the platen was traveling slowly at apparently random times in the scan direction.
Those machines used a rotary encoder that looked like a propeller as part of the platen drive control, and a mouse had got caught between the encoder and the bracket for the sensor, and had gotten skinned and sawed. The mouse skin had adhered to the encoder, blocking some of the slots and that caused the erratic platen speeds. That was probably the least pleasant thing I've ever seen in a copier. I used a lot of WD40 and alcohol to clean things up.
Oh, I did see a mouse that got caught halfway through the fuser of a Konica 1290. It looked surprised.