Small creatures can crawl into air ducts

My parents were really strict when I was in high school. I was their only daughter, and so they coddled me throughout everything I did. When I started dating my boyfriend, they became even more strict and created rules that were easy to break so that I would be grounded all of the time. When I was grounded, my boyfriend snuck up the side of the house and would crawl into my bedroom window so we could hang out. One night after he crawled in, we were watching a movie when we heard my mom scream from their bedroom. Apparently a mouse had climbed out of the air vent and jumped onto their bed. We later learned that the mouse had crawled in from my air vent and traveled through the ducts to get to my parents’ room. My dad checked the air ducts and noticed that they were not properly sealed. Our HVAC technician must have skipped this step during the last inspection. My dad had been meaning to find a new HVAC contractor for us to work with because this was not the first time he had dropped the ball. My parents were so concerned about getting the ducts sealed away that they didn’t bother to question how the mouse came inside in the first place. But once the air ducts were getting sealed and the technician proposed the possible reason for the mouse’s appearance, my parents quickly realized how sneaky I was being. I still blame that air conditioning technician for me getting caught and being grounded for the rest of that entire school year.

air quality