I got fooled like this once: It was a bee's nest. Bumble
bees! A HUGE nest!
Pop


"Kiwanda" wrote in message
...
(Don Klipstein) wrote in
:
Do the telephones have features powered by a
transformer? (Most
home
phones do not but some do and many office phones do.)

That was my first thought, since doorbell transformers are
often either next to the service panel or near the chimes;
the old phone
transformers can be just about anywhere, esp. if someone
installed a "princess" phone that needed one when the house
was built. My
1958 house had a phone transformer retrofitted, I'd
imagine sometime in the 1960s, and it was still wired and
hot when I bought the
place in 2001. My guess is that it's been a very long
time since anyone had a princess phone here, as the only
active phone
connection was the wall block in the kitchen.

-drl