Ever find "things" inside your carts?

[VectorGamer]

I cleaned the p155 out of the Midnight Magic cart and still the damn thing wouldn't work...upon further inspection under a bright light, I saw at least two crusty old bugs inside...that was enough for me to pitch it

[raskar42]

spiders mostly

 

once i found a button, that was weird

[+jd_1138]

I used to work in the audio-visual dept. at the city library, and this was the days of VHS tapes (mid 90's), and this one family returned some VHS films, and cockroaches were hopping out of the cases. A female clerk screamed and jumped. And we found cockroach eggs on the tapes. Imagine having a house so filthy that cockroaches would cling to a VHS tape?!?! And the movies smelled like the general nasty house funk, that all nasty houses possess.

 

How hard is it to clean a house? You throw the rubbish out (especially food), and you vacuum the carpets and mop the kitchen floor occasionally. It's not rocket science.

Edited December 22, 2010 by gps_trekker

[VectorGamer]

I used to work in the audio-visual dept. at the city library, and this was the days of VHS tapes (mid 90's), and this one family returned some VHS films, and cockroaches were hopping out of the cases. A female clerk screamed and jumped. And we found cockroach eggs on the tapes. Imagine having a house so filthy that cockroaches would cling to a VHS tape?!?! And the movies smelled like the general nasty house funk, that all nasty houses possess.

 

How hard is it to clean a house? You throw the rubbish out (especially food), and you vacuum the carpets and mop the kitchen floor occasionally. It's not rocket science.

 

That's friggin' nasty!

[Lendorien]

There's resale shop near where I work. I was talking to one of the guys who works there a few years back. They buy and sell video games, movies, etc. Anyway, he talked about how he found a stash of pot inside the hard drive enclosure of a PS2 once.

 

I seem to recall another thread somewhere where a game store owner said he finds stuff like that every few months. Apparently potheads forget where their stash is and then accidentally sell it when they sell their consoles to get money for more drugs.

 

I didn't ask him what he did with it.

Edited December 22, 2010 by Lendorien

[jboypacman]

When i worked at Electronic Boutique years ago we use to find pot seeds in the cases of Sega Genesis trade-ins.

[AtariLeaf]

Not exactly the same but I bought a boxed PC game many years ago at a pawn shop and when I got it home and I opened it up and took everything out of the box, I picked up the box and put it aside and as I did so I noticed something moving around between the boxes insert and the bottom of the box. When I removed the insert I found a computer game CD but the not the game I bought, it was some kind of XXX Porno video game. Some kind of FMV porno point and click adventure. I don't even remember the name of it but I chucked it ( after trying it of course )

[godslabrat]

Totally not in the same league as pot, porn and roaches, but I know of a pawn shop that used to put anti-theft tags inside the NES games. They kept a security bit on hand and opened up each one, put the tag in there, and screwed it back together.

 

Sounds like a lot of work to save a $3 NES game... but if you knew the guys that worked at this shop, it wouldn't be a wonder who was hiding weed in the PS2s.

[Eltigro]

It wasn't in a game, but in the system itself. Took apart my Master System to clean it up and found a dead roach in it. I had gotten in from Ebay, of course.

[Rik]

I have a couple of Interphase game carts that rattled when shaken.Found the cause was broken plastic tabs inside.Seems those cases have flimsy tabs and break up inside when dropped.

[potatohead]

I've seen chewing gum, a piece of crayon, coins, a crusty old slug (how the hell?), spiders.

 

Most of my carts came from the late 90's, when it was possible to score big lots at flea markets.

 

At that time, I also scored a bunch of those 4 cart wall display case things that snap together. Almost always found things inside of those.

[PsychoKittyNet]

A few years back I was working in the electronics section at Wal Mart, we had to put away some TVs that came in on the return cart. Anyways, I pick up a box for a 19 inch CRT, and the box was incredibly light. Me and my co worker were puzzled, so we opened up the (obviously taped shut) box and found dirty laundry. Needless to say, we laughed and tried to figure out how the girls at customer service let this one by.

Edited December 27, 2010 by PsychoKittyNet

[SlowCoder]

Atari that reeked of dirty house, gotten from eBay. Other than that, the occasional spider web, and I think one time a cockroach egg sack.

[+save2600]

Spiders, spider eggs and spider cocoons. Cockroach whatevers, hair, lint, gum, tootsie roll, spilled coffee and Coca-Cola, pill bugs, hairpins, clay, crayons, boogers and I think that just about covers all I've seen in cartridges throughout the years! lol

 

I worked for Funcoland for a brief stint. One day, this gross family wallowed in and wanted to trade a few carts. Of course, we looked at the edge connectors to make sure all was right - but it wasn't this time. Had God only knows what kind of nasty insect funk was in it. Probably spider/cockroach crap. Well anyway, I was thoroughly disgusted, showed my colleague behind the counter and we both agreed we wouldn't be taking these carts in. Dirtbag guy proceeds to go off and threw the carts at us. Said he wanted to "beat my ass" and all this and that. I was in my mid 20's then and a new manager recruit, so I was trying to behave as diplomatically as possible. Because the store was flooded with customers and the guy was raising the biggest stink I have ever witnessed, I finally broke down and asked if he'd like to take this outside. Yep, in front of his kids and all. lol I knew it wasn't going to come to that, but it must have been enough to snap the guy out of his tirade and finally leave. All the while, cussing out the door. All this over a few measley Genny carts no less! I had pretty much had enough of our scumbag customers by then and and quit shortly after that. Arlington Heights, IL Funcoland. What a shithole that place was and the people they attracted. Oy!

Edited December 27, 2010 by save2600

[Video]

Rarely find anyting outside of typical bugs, roaches, spiders, and ants. Occasionally even some live ones. But I go through lots of games, and some of them come from only god knows where (though even he wouldn't want to)

[Coleco Gemini]

hmm, where do I start! Well people are filthy and dont take care of their stuff, my SNES that I just purchased was filthy, then I bought a PS from a guy who cleans out foreclosed homes, for like $5 and man that thing was filthy! but after a cleaning of the laser and the case it was good as new!

[jahfish]

i once found a pacman arcade coin in a pacman cart ... that coin is still in my collection now

[Arjak]

i once found a pacman arcade coin in a pacman cart ... that coin is still in my collection now

 

Sweet! I have some of those! In another city near me, there is an arcade run by Namco at the mall, and they used tokens with Pac-Man engraved on them.

[Cebus Capucinis]

One time I found an EPROM that had been glued!

[TheGameCollector]

The weirdest thing I had was a severly warped copy of Pac-Man that I got free with my Darth Vader Atari 2600 from a digitpress member. I used a screwdriver to push down the cart and keep the tab open. When I shook it over the toilet, many wings and broken pieces of what looked like flying ants fell out. I did this until nothing else would come out and said, "this is what happens when you store a game outside in the sun till it melts while laying against a copy of Yars' Revenge. You get the flying bug shown on the cover melted into your other game..."

[Crimefighter]

Where is there an opening big enough on these carts for them to get in???

[TheGameCollector]

Where is there an opening big enough on these carts for them to get in???

 

Beats me. Bugs can be very tricky about squeezing into impossibly tight spaces. We had double-paned windows in the living room and there would be different kinds of bugs stuck in there till they dried up and turned light brown. One time a spider got stuck in the led panel inside my VCR where the clock and channel select digits show up. So you could see its shadow behind the bright green light but it didn't obstruct the view of the numbers either.

[Rockin' Kat]

I found big dead daddy long leg spiders in an Atari 2600 once... I cleaned it up all shiny and sold it to someone where who will never know how filthy that thing was... the exterior of that case was so filthy it stained the rag I used to clean it and I was using scrubbing bubbles on it.

 

I got a package that someone threw in a couple extra games once... the extra games were so gross... I think they had like cocoons in them from caterpillars or something in them and the labels were obviously water damaged... they were so gross.. oh and the contacts were rusted... They were so gross I just decided to toss them.

[Inky]

I know a guy that accidentally left a sandwich in a server one time when he went out on a maintenance call.

[thebiggw]

Ever see that movie "Cloak and Dagger"? LOL thats what I found inside mine!! Top secret govt stuff!!