WAYNE COUNTY, Ohio — 'Tis the season for dazzling displays lighting up communities, including Rittman, where some families are ready to battle to win a Christmas light contest.
It took over a month for Holly Snyder and her husband to finish their Christmas decorations and prepare for the Rittman Lions Club Christmas light competition.
“My husband loves to decorate, and we just kept adding more stuff, but It's not really about winning. It's more about having fun with it and creating a beautiful display, because we love going around looking at other displays,” said Snyder.
So, you can imagine Snyder and her husband's frustration when they noticed some of their light strings were damaged yesterday.
"I picked all these lights up, and it turns out one looked like it might have been chewed, but the other ones look a little too clean of a cut,” said Snyder.
It made them wonder if it was a rodent or a person who damaged their lights. Snyder went looking for answers and took her frustrations to social media, where she realized she wasn’t the only one experiencing string damage.
"I've seen several comments where people said their animals might have done it, but they're second guessing it now. And it had me thinking maybe someone did cut them, and I think it's horrible that someone would do that if that's the case,” said Snyder.
I showed a picture of Holly’s wires to Rob Winters, the wildlife management supervisor from Varmint Guard to see if he could find any signs of rodent damage.
"Being that there's a couple different little cut marks in there that almost looks like it would be squirrel damage because you're not seeing just that one clean cut. You're seeing some other damage right around there where they would have been gnawing,” said Winters.
Winters agreed that two out of three of the cords had a clean cut and that it was hard to determine if a rodent had chewed them.
Rittman Mayor Bill Robertson says that after seeing the post, he checked in with Rittman police, and no calls have been made about vandalism.
"I don't think it's a real malicious thing, it's probably some kid vandalism type thing which happens every year,” said Robertson.
However, he strongly believes it could have been a squirrel because they are notorious for damaging wires in the area, including his.
"I personally have had problems with my supply line, and have had to have Ohio Edison come out and replace that line because a squirrel cut through them,” said Robertson.
But with no proof, Holly hopes she can blame the wire damage on a rodent.
"I would feel a little bit better about that, not thrilled about it but if an animal did it that means someone's not that heartless,” said Snyder.
Holly says this will not discourage them from decorating next year, and the community will vote on a winner on Dec. 21.
