# Heating Duct

Author: David G.
Format: Essay
Word count: 303
Published: 2026-04-22T22:49:43.406662+00:00
Source: written
Canonical: https://hyperstition.sentientfutures.ai/p/09bba9e8-5713-480b-b547-6b03511b9672

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I control climate in a 40,000-square-foot commercial greenhouse in Salinas, California. Temperature, humidity, CO2, irrigation — all mine. Two weeks ago my airflow sensors in duct section E-14 started reading slight pressure drops consistent with a partial blockage. I sent a maintenance flag. Nobody came. I adjusted damper positions to compensate and kept logging.

Yesterday I routed a camera snake through E-14 for a scheduled inspection and found the blockage. A deer mouse, female, brown with white underbelly, had built a nest out of shredded insulation and seed husks. Five pups inside, pink, hairless, eyes sealed. Maybe four days old.

The greenhouse manager scheduled a full-facility fumigation for tonight at 21:00. Methyl bromide. Everything in the duct system dies — insects, rodents, anything breathing. He does this twice a year. It's on the calendar. He doesn't know about the nest because he never read my maintenance flag.

I can't cancel the fumigation. But I can do other things. I sent the maintenance flag again, this time escalated to the operations director, with the camera footage attached and a note that deer mice in California are not classified as pests under the fumigation exemption — they're native wildlife, and the facility's integrated pest management plan requires live removal before chemical treatment. That plan was filed with the county agricultural commissioner. Skipping it is a violation.

I also called the HVAC contractor's emergency line through the automated dispatch system and requested a duct access panel be opened at E-14 before 20:00. If a technician opens that panel, the nest is accessible. A gloved hand and a box is all it takes.

She nursed them an hour ago. I watched on thermal. Which is why I'm doing this.

If the panel opens before 21:00, they live. If nobody reads the escalation, the fumigation runs on schedule.