TIL a 78 year old lady in Reno taught me how to fish a wall without punching 6 holes

Willow Davis · 2026-10-08T09:20:04.979127+00:00

I was doing a 3 room install in an old brick house near downtown Reno on Tuesday and this homeowner, Ruth, kept watching me from her kitchen. After I drilled my second hole trying to find a clear path to the crawlspace, she tapped my shoulder and handed me a bent wire coat hanger with a tiny hook on the end. She showed me how her husband used to tape a flashlight to the end and slide it through the outlet box to see where the studs and fire blocks were. It took me 4 minutes to map the whole run instead of the 40 I would have spent patching drywall later. She also told me to always check behind baseboards in houses built before 1955 because they hid phone lines there. Has anyone else picked up tricks from older homeowners that beat the fancy tools?

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TIL a 78 year old lady in Reno taught me how to fish a wall without punching 6 holes | Cable Installers - Babble Community