Grossest cleaning ever

[mizarkgram]

I was just cleaning a Top Loading NES that I got off of a buddy here in town, and it was teh dirtiest system that I have ever seen, so I decided to take it apart and clean it out.

Well, when I opened up the casing, I found a family of dead little beetles underneath the system board. It was so gross cuz there was even some rotting larva in there too....

Now I got two questions:
1. How the hell did those things get in there???
2. Who in their right mind would let their systems come into that bad of condition!

PS: the System is now minty clean and works 100%

[Bratwurst]

It's common for bugs to crawl into electronic 'boxes' ala TVs and VCRs through the vent slots and such. The heat attracts them and it's nice and dark.

My nastiest would be opening up a TG-16 arcade stick and finding pizza crust inside.

[Garry Silljo]

A friend asked me to clean a Saturn he bought because it wasnt working right. When I opened it I found a cache of used and unused Marlboro Red's. I know the brand because some soft packs were inside there too. Aside from the cigarettes the entire inside was covered in a white dust. I didn't ask what it was or where he got it. The system cleaned up nice and works fine though after some loose connections were strengthened.

[-hellvin-]

I always get the creeps when I think about what crawls into all my systems. Especially my Sega Genesis/CD Model 2 sitting on the floor. It was really nasty when I was at the disgusting games plus near me and I watched the middle eastern guy open an NES and SPRAY the roaches to death that crawled out of it.

[Dahne]

My cat once hawked up a hairball on my copy of Wild ARMs.

Fortunately, those jewel cases clean up easily.

[Nesmaster]

dirtiest thing i ever came in contact with was contra force, which i bought from ebay. it took 4 qtips to clean the damn contacts. 4!!!!!!

[Wavelflack]

I don't think I've ever found anything outrageously disgusting, such as a small pile of shit or dried vomit, inside a system or game. But I HAVE run across many games and systems obviously previously owned by candy loving kids with poor washing habits. That's just foul. I bought a regular NES (along with 20+ carts for $10--not to worry!) that was covered from top to bottom with sticky child-sludge. I cleaned it up the best I felt it deserved (ie; no vent cleaning whatsoever), and it still took a good ten minutes and a LOT of alcohol and 409.

[MegaDrive20XX]

Nastiest system I ever cleaned was a Super NES.

Someone spilled an orange soda in it (Didn't even touch the mother board which was a shock), had gum on the bottom of it, and a tiny roach was caught in the 62 PIN connector lol

[Nez]

My worst experiance was with my Dreamcast. I've said this before on another topic, but its good enough to be told again. When I opend her up a found a dorito and some mold growing inside the case. I was wondering why the case was turning yellow so I figured it was the mold and just got a new case for the system.(Blue if anyone cares)

The other would be a 2600 I got in a lot. Nastyest condition I have ever seen. Who ever owned it last left it out side to rust. The circut board had rust and mudd all over it , and the cart slot had leaves inside. Needless to say I did'nt work.

Oh last but not least I found a Black widows nest inside of hellvins' TurboDuo. @_@

[-hellvin-]

Oh last but not least I found a Black widows nest inside of hellvins' TurboDuo. @_@

Sweet, I was hoping to be reminded of that.

[Push Upstairs]

I think i have told this story before but its still a pretty bad one.

When working the game store some lady sells off her Gamecube. I test it, it works, cash paid, placed in the bin to be cleaned. Next day i come in my co-worker tells me that a roach crawled out of the laser eye opening while he was cleaning it. So i put on some cleaning gloves and proceed to open up this Gamecube and eradicate this roach....

THE THING WAS INFESTED WITH LIVE ROACHES

It took damn near two weeks of attempts to kill of those six legged sons of bitches: Bug spray, sitting out in the cold (it was winter) and in the end the bugs and the system died.


2nd worst would be cleaning off 20 years of dust and mouse droppings off of a 2600.

[chaoticjelly]

Some of these systems must be situated in very unclean places..........

[Pantechnicon]

My worst was a pair of Coleco ADAM controllers I was cleaning and completely mystified to open them up and find what appeared to be dozens of tiny red ants. They were all dead, but it was the principal of the thing. They must have crawled in through the hole near the snap ring (or maybe they made their way from the console through the cables LOL ) Just disgusting.

[tholly]

wow....some of those stories are pretty disgusting.....thank god i have never run into anything like that yet...

[Jorpho]

THE THING WAS INFESTED WITH LIVE ROACHES

It took damn near two weeks of attempts to kill of those six legged sons of bitches: Bug spray, sitting out in the cold (it was winter) and in the end the bugs and the system died.

Huh? You mean your store was infested for two weeks? Or did you put the system outside and give it a good spraying regularly? Was it the bug spray that ultimately killed the system?

[WiseSalesman]

I personally have actually never cleaned a system, but I remember that the last time this topic came around, someone found a "roach" of another kind in some equipment.

[MarioAllStar2600]

The worst I have ever had was walnuts. SOunds wierd but inbetween the casing and contacts were big chunks of walnuts. I had trouble getting them out to. Wierd part is the box was in decent condition and cart was mint. :hmm:

The other day I was at work and we had to ship out a birdcage. Ok not bad minus how huge the thing is but I was the one who had to clean it. We have these things that shoot lots of air really fast so I am usuing that just to blow it off. I notice that there are these little black things all over it. I just keep cleaning away, these things are going all over and hitting me in the face. Turns out to be rat poop. So yea that was pretty gross.

[tholly]

The worst I have ever had was walnuts. SOunds wierd but inbetween the casing and contacts were big chunks of walnuts. I had trouble getting them out to. Wierd part is the box was in decent condition and cart was mint. :hmm:

The other day I was at work and we had to ship out a birdcage. Ok not bad minus how huge the thing is but I was the one who had to clean it. We have these things that shoot lots of air really fast so I am usuing that just to blow it off. I notice that there are these little black things all over it. I just keep cleaning away, these things are going all over and hitting me in the face. Turns out to be rat poop. So yea that was pretty gross.


yum....rat poop in the face...sounds like a good time if you ask me

[maxlords]

The worst for me is cigarette smell. I bought a guy's collection that was a heavy smoker once. Sold me his Sega Genesis/CD with a stack of games for $50 (including Snatcher, Shining Force CD, Uncharted Waters 2, and a bunch of other rares. Now I'm a non-smoker, and I got this stuff home and HOLY CRAP did it reek. We're talking smell it two rooms away! I ended up taking the inserts out of everything and airing em in our garage for THREE MONTHS. And they STILL smelled faintly. Aired the inserts for the same length of time. Now a few years later, you can barely tell. But...ew.

Still doesn't beat live roaches tho.

[Graham Mitchell]

I haven't experienced stuff too nasty other than a Super Mario World cart with a suspicious, water-soluble brown stain. But what I hear attracts the worst vermin and insects is arcade cabs. I've read about someone who bought some cabinet and it had a wasp's nest in the coin box. Another person bought an R-type upright that, unbeknownst to him, was infested with rats. He had rats in his house for a year because of that.

You know the arcade cabs are going to be in crappy condition because when they stop bringing in money for the original owners, they're pretty much viewed as trash (especially nowadays.)

[Cow Bell Man]

The worst case that I have delt with was when a frend gave me his old nes. I opened it up to see what kind of condion it was in and found rat dropings. Yuk!

[Daria]

Working at Gamestop, someone actually accepted a trade in of NES games in a plastic bag soaked in cat urine...

O_O

I ended up washing them out but god damn... that was just plain nasty.

Although I've also gotten a GBC camera in on trade-in with home made "porn" saved to the cartridge. Nasty on a whole new level.

[Nez]

Pron on the game boy camera? NOW that's art. :pimp:

[Push Upstairs]

Huh? You mean your store was infested for two weeks? Or did you put the system outside and give it a good spraying regularly? Was it the bug spray that ultimately killed the system?

We "bug bombed" the inside of some plastic bags and placed the system inside there for a week. And by "bug bombed" i mean we sprayed dame near a whole can inside the bag and sealed it up. After a week of this the little things were still alive. We also placed the game system outside hoping that the cold would kill off the bugs.

I don't know for sure what killed the Gamecube....i'm guessing the bug spray, but the cords and controller were salvaged and the Cube was laid to rest in the dumpster.


Nintendo 0 Roaches 1



Although I've also gotten a GBC camera in on trade-in with home made "porn" saved to the cartridge. Nasty on a whole new level.

GBC and porn are two things i would have never thought of in the same sentence.

However, this is a great story to tell friends and people on internet message boards :D

[The_EniGma]

Im not being nasty to smokers or being prejuiced to words em but antyhing they own reeks of a nasty smell thats why i avoid buying them being in a non smoking family

The nastiest thing ive found is a piece of poo( or what looked like it and my dad said it was just a small fragment of dirt) no wonder that tenchu was soo cheap

Also the muckiest my ps2 gets a thin fine layer of dust before i dust it and run my ps2 lazer clean disk.

[Aussie2B]

Haha, Game Boy Camera porn. :) That totally rocks.

It's hard to choose what the dirtiest system or game I've cleaned was. I've gotten lots of weird stuff. o_O What sticks in my memory best is the PlayStation I recently cleaned that was covered in dried up, caked on bird crap. I can't open it up just yet, so I hope it's doesn't have anything nasty on the inside... I've also cleaned cart connectors that left the q-tips bright green, red, brown, and black. I've gotten carts with what appeared to be mud all around the connectors, and I've had carts with unknown ick all over them. Could've been dried up vomit as far as I know. O_o I try not to think about it too much. I just get it clean, wash my hands thoroughly, and try to forget. :P

[BLACKFROSTT]

Traded this young hippie dude all of the NES carts and systems his older brother had left at home for 2 boxes of worthless comicbooks and found a stash of old pot in one of the systems......I always wondered why it started blinking after I took it out.... LOL LOL And no...I did'nt smoke it... ;)

[The Insomniac]

I've never had anything major, just thick dust, spiderwebs, and moth cocoons. Sometimes I find dead earwigs and flys. That's the worst I've had so far.