Linesman, collectors, sparkles etc... what's the nastiest, dirtiest or grossest light that you've had to deal with?

Basically all east german lights made by VEB Leuchtenbau Leipzig with fibre glass housing are the most nastiest fittings i had ever dealt with.

 A few years ago , I exhumed some of my collection from the back of my carport . Since the carport had an open front , it was frequented by many forms of critters who made nests in the lights AND used them as a bathroom !! YUK !!! https://www.lighting-gallery.net/gallery/displayimage.php?album=5198&pos=268&pid=163709 Most of them got powerwashed with HOT water using a LOT of bleach !

I would say my OV-15 Silverliner which served for 60+ years D2D without any sort of internal cleaning throughout its lifetime. YUCK! 

I'm a industrial electrician , so I see quite a lot of bad condition equipment in service. Severely dirty lamps is common, severely corroded lamps are also very common!

One thing that is pretty impressive is at work, some fluorescent fixtures are so rotten that they barely stay together. And to top it off,they're covered in mud and heavy moist dust. Somehow they still work despite that!

There are also some nice examples of extremely disgusting lamps with spider webs all over them, and oil that has leaked all over and into them. I'm surprised it isn't causing ground faults! Short circuited ballasts causing the tubes to instantly blow up if you try relamping some fixtures is also common, and they leak greenish tinted oil from their capacitors, and thick tar from their ballast!

I see a lot of crazy things daily, but I almost always forget to take photos of it.

- Street lights with loads of bird nests and fleas inside the ballast compartment and street lights with loads of wet dead insects
- Siemens/ Siteco and AEG lanterns with GRP (Glass fiber) housing. Sometimes really itchy and nasty to work with
- Old lanterns with exploded or leaking capacitors containing Pyranol or PCBs.

I'm a industrial electrician , so I see quite a lot of bad condition equipment in service. Severely dirty lamps is common, severely corroded lamps are also very common!

One thing that is pretty impressive is at work, some fluorescent fixtures are so rotten that they barely stay together. And to top it off,they're covered in mud and heavy moist dust. Somehow they still work despite that!

There are also some nice examples of extremely disgusting lamps with spider webs all over them, and oil that has leaked all over and into them. I'm surprised it isn't causing ground faults! Short circuited ballasts causing the tubes to instantly blow up if you try relamping some fixtures is also common, and they leak greenish tinted oil from their capacitors, and thick tar from their ballast!

I see a lot of crazy things daily, but I almost always forget to take photos of it.

I have recovered old carbon filament lamps covered in pigeon sh*t. Lights full of rat crap, fixtures full of wasps nests. etc. It is a miracle I am not patient zero for some new disease with how reckless I used to be. Nowadays I've mellowed out but I will still grab some crusty old light with a broom handle or something if I deem it worthy enough.

To be honest I haven't had to deal with much in the way of filthy fixtures, I'm got a post top fixture with a bad seal, which was packed full of dead insects, about an inch of dead insects in the base! The gear chamber was also PACKED with spiders and their webs, lots of spiders in many of my lights come to think of it.

No problem with Spiders at all nor with wasps. Every second lantern had some wasps this summer but I’m not bothered with them.
There was one lantern filled with small ants and they even managed to get into the sealed part of the fixture destroying the LED driver.

Yeah, I've got no issues with spiders, though I'll always use a stick to remove spiders, I was messing around with a box of garden waste the other day and a red back jumped out (highly venomous spider).

Haha, I picked up a fallen light from a pedestrian lane way which was full of ants, though it works fine. Bit of a pain to carry home on my shoulder for an hour!

I’ve got bitten by a spider this year which was slightly venous. Of course we don’t have that dangerous spiders here like in Australia but that Zoropsis Spinimana surprised  me a lot. 

Yeah, most of the spiders over here are fine, but those few mean that I'm not taking any chances!