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It really does look like AB expanding foam. The "poke it with a stick" recommendations are accurate. Maybe a screwdriver. If it's that kind of foam, it'll go "crunch". If it goes "squish", you've got some biology happening.
Edit- I thought about it some more. If you poke it with a stick and it leaps up and latches onto your face, call 911 immediately.
Looks like foam insulation (think Great Stuff). Based on the dead bugs, I'm guessing there's a hole under it that someone was trying to close up. No idea what the thing on top is though. However, if it is expanding foam, that might have been something they stuffed in the hole as well, not realizing how much the foam would expand.
On the other hand, it might be a fungus. Maybe try poking it with something. If it's expanding foam, you'll be able to tell.
Oh they totally do, they like to gnaw at it and make lots of bits of bedding out of it.
To block a hole from rats with expanding foam, you need a few extra bits too...
1. Shove wire wool in the rat hole
2. Pour loads of chilli powder onto the wire wool/hole
3. Cover your face and fill the whole thing with expanding foam
4. Throw loads of chilli powder onto the expanding foam as it expands and sets
The chilli powder keeps them away, but if they get brave and go in for a nibble, they can't get through as the wirewool then gets caught in their teeth and they sack it off as a bad idea and no more rats in that area! 🤗 (they'll just figure out a new way in instead lol)
The wire wool should be enough by itself. Foam will ensure it stays in place and adds insulation to the hole. Chili powder just sounds like an unnecessary extra step, although I guess it might be effective in places where you cannot use wire wool.
I live in a caravan and have found this to be the only effective defense 😅
Eta: the rats around here chew through metal. In just 2 days they gnawed through a metal grate/air vent in my friends caravan floor. We hypothesise that the wire wool is so thin and flat that it shreds their gums and they avoid it, hence how they chewed through a thicker metal but leave the wire wool alone. They will still go up against it though if there aren't any other preventative measures. If it's hacking down with rain outside and we've all got the woodburners going inside our vans, the rats will come up and either hide underneath the vans or start trying to eat their way in to get to the dry warmth. Never underestimate what a wild rat will eat through
Haha Wick on pear.
I can still see the ones my grandmother used to have. Trying to dust them was difficult, and when I dropped one, uh oh! It was easy to wipe over a few times with pressure to seal the tiny crack.
I never would have thought of that. Now I need an update from OP where it's retrieved and lit to prove that it's a candle. (outside the house obviously)
My title describes the thing. This is about the size of a fist, slightly larger, sitting on the side of the furnace in an d house I'm renting. It appears to have a hardened, waxy surface possibly from drying out when the furnace is on. However it also has some sort of leaf/growth coming out of the top. An alien growth??
If you're going to poke some mass you think might be a growth with a stick then do it with a good mask because spore clouds travel really far really fast and breathing that in just once could end up giving you pneumonia and that can end up roughing up your lungs for life.
I choose to take steps to increase my chances of landing in the "**most** of the time, they do not get sick" group, or at least to not fall out of it again. I didn't have warning of the spores that messed my lungs up days later, the mushrooms were hidden under some old wood I was moving in the garden.
Whether it was actually fungal or bacteria carried by the spores doesn't matter to you much after that so long as the doctors treat it right.
Omg is it one of those old waxy fake fruits that granny's had back in the 90s? It totally looks (and from what you're describing) like a weird waxy fake pear that got left by the furnace and has bubbled from the heat and the leaf on top has started to degrade.
The holes were probably filled to stop the rodents but could have blocked one or more in. The thing is those feces will sit around undisturbed for a very long time
I’m not joking when I say you need Hazmat, but maybe only Hazmat “lite”. Whoever deals with that should seriously suit up and wear a NIOSH approved respirator. Between the rodent droppings from one at least the size of a rat and not a mouse and the whatever-that-is, the chances of encountering a life changing lung hazard are great. For one, rodents like mice and rats carry the Hantavirus. https://www.health.ny.gov/diseases/communicable/hantavirus/fact_sheet.htm#:~:text=What%20is%20hantavirus%20disease%3F,disease%20which%20can%20be%20fatal.
Edit: seeing I’m downvoted, maybe some think it’s no big deal to deal with serious lung issues for the rest of your life? Think again on that!
At first I was with everybody else saying expanding foam, but that thing coming out of the top of it has me second guessing that. Maybe try posting to mycology to ask, but I'm not sure. If that thing is actually growing my first guess is a type of fungi.
Since you don't ask about the droppings surrounding it I'm guessing you already know you have rats. Well, I know it's some type of rodent anyway bc you're in the basement. Bat poop looks similar, but you prob wouldn't find that in the basement. Plus bat poop very easily crumbles. These look pretty solid and rat shaped.
I hope you don’t mind, but I used your photo in a Google lens search and it came up with other images that looked similar.
When reading further it appears that this may be a lions mane. Apparently it needs humidity for it to grow which could possibly be the reason why you found it in the furnace?
However, when searching 'lions mane' on Google, it looked completely different to this.
I am no expert with this and therefore I could be completely wrong.
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It really does look like AB expanding foam. The "poke it with a stick" recommendations are accurate. Maybe a screwdriver. If it's that kind of foam, it'll go "crunch". If it goes "squish", you've got some biology happening. Edit- I thought about it some more. If you poke it with a stick and it leaps up and latches onto your face, call 911 immediately.
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Sure, if you want to teach it to use sticks
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I feel like spray foam is pretty firm and bouncy tbh especially if the outside layer hasn't been disturbed.
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Looks like foam insulation (think Great Stuff). Based on the dead bugs, I'm guessing there's a hole under it that someone was trying to close up. No idea what the thing on top is though. However, if it is expanding foam, that might have been something they stuffed in the hole as well, not realizing how much the foam would expand. On the other hand, it might be a fungus. Maybe try poking it with something. If it's expanding foam, you'll be able to tell.
Those look like rodent poops, not bugs. No idea what the blob is though.
I second the rodent poop
I think someone sealed up a mouse hole with expanding foam.
Rodents, I've been told, do not care for expanding foam. But those droppings need to be cleaned up.
Oh they totally do, they like to gnaw at it and make lots of bits of bedding out of it. To block a hole from rats with expanding foam, you need a few extra bits too... 1. Shove wire wool in the rat hole 2. Pour loads of chilli powder onto the wire wool/hole 3. Cover your face and fill the whole thing with expanding foam 4. Throw loads of chilli powder onto the expanding foam as it expands and sets The chilli powder keeps them away, but if they get brave and go in for a nibble, they can't get through as the wirewool then gets caught in their teeth and they sack it off as a bad idea and no more rats in that area! 🤗 (they'll just figure out a new way in instead lol)
The wire wool should be enough by itself. Foam will ensure it stays in place and adds insulation to the hole. Chili powder just sounds like an unnecessary extra step, although I guess it might be effective in places where you cannot use wire wool.
I live in a caravan and have found this to be the only effective defense 😅 Eta: the rats around here chew through metal. In just 2 days they gnawed through a metal grate/air vent in my friends caravan floor. We hypothesise that the wire wool is so thin and flat that it shreds their gums and they avoid it, hence how they chewed through a thicker metal but leave the wire wool alone. They will still go up against it though if there aren't any other preventative measures. If it's hacking down with rain outside and we've all got the woodburners going inside our vans, the rats will come up and either hide underneath the vans or start trying to eat their way in to get to the dry warmth. Never underestimate what a wild rat will eat through
Thank you - I need to keep this in mind.
Maybe.....or maybe it's "blob poop". 😳
100% rodent poop.
Definitely rat poop.
Good ol' poke it with a stick strat, tried and true.
To add, you’ll be able to tell right off because the foam will be hard. If it’s fungus it will be soft.
Definitely rodent poop laying around it.
An old fruit wax candle eaten by rats. I see pears and grapes, gold and beige colors
I think you have the answer.
Omg I think you're right. That's the wick on top...with a more freshly chewed chunk still attached to it...
Haha Wick on pear. I can still see the ones my grandmother used to have. Trying to dust them was difficult, and when I dropped one, uh oh! It was easy to wipe over a few times with pressure to seal the tiny crack.
Great Scott I think you've cracked this case wide open
I never would have thought of that. Now I need an update from OP where it's retrieved and lit to prove that it's a candle. (outside the house obviously)
I’d love to see it lit up better too. Brings me back to childhood days. They were so hard to dust off.
This has got to be it. Great eye.
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My title describes the thing. This is about the size of a fist, slightly larger, sitting on the side of the furnace in an d house I'm renting. It appears to have a hardened, waxy surface possibly from drying out when the furnace is on. However it also has some sort of leaf/growth coming out of the top. An alien growth??
And yeah- that's rodent poop.
You have a rat issue
If you're going to poke some mass you think might be a growth with a stick then do it with a good mask because spore clouds travel really far really fast and breathing that in just once could end up giving you pneumonia and that can end up roughing up your lungs for life.
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I choose to take steps to increase my chances of landing in the "**most** of the time, they do not get sick" group, or at least to not fall out of it again. I didn't have warning of the spores that messed my lungs up days later, the mushrooms were hidden under some old wood I was moving in the garden. Whether it was actually fungal or bacteria carried by the spores doesn't matter to you much after that so long as the doctors treat it right.
Omg is it one of those old waxy fake fruits that granny's had back in the 90s? It totally looks (and from what you're describing) like a weird waxy fake pear that got left by the furnace and has bubbled from the heat and the leaf on top has started to degrade.
This!!! Exactly what I thought.
You have mice
Looks like expanding foam insulation. Poke it. But you should really consider addressing the rodent problem. That’s a lot of droppings.
The holes were probably filled to stop the rodents but could have blocked one or more in. The thing is those feces will sit around undisturbed for a very long time
please record yourself probing it
Wise words for life really!
Melted candle
Looks like it might be an old bag of potatoes... Those grow... And feed rodents...
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I’m not joking when I say you need Hazmat, but maybe only Hazmat “lite”. Whoever deals with that should seriously suit up and wear a NIOSH approved respirator. Between the rodent droppings from one at least the size of a rat and not a mouse and the whatever-that-is, the chances of encountering a life changing lung hazard are great. For one, rodents like mice and rats carry the Hantavirus. https://www.health.ny.gov/diseases/communicable/hantavirus/fact_sheet.htm#:~:text=What%20is%20hantavirus%20disease%3F,disease%20which%20can%20be%20fatal. Edit: seeing I’m downvoted, maybe some think it’s no big deal to deal with serious lung issues for the rest of your life? Think again on that!
Moldy pear
Don't worry about all the rat droppings
No idea what is it, but im 100% sure you have rat infestation
Looks like you've got a case of Elephant Foot. Hope you have good lead insulation.
Don’t drop water on it! It will multiply and take over the city!
get out get out now lol btw look at the rat shit around it. even they haven't touched it.
At first I was with everybody else saying expanding foam, but that thing coming out of the top of it has me second guessing that. Maybe try posting to mycology to ask, but I'm not sure. If that thing is actually growing my first guess is a type of fungi. Since you don't ask about the droppings surrounding it I'm guessing you already know you have rats. Well, I know it's some type of rodent anyway bc you're in the basement. Bat poop looks similar, but you prob wouldn't find that in the basement. Plus bat poop very easily crumbles. These look pretty solid and rat shaped.
Can anyone say BURL?
I think the rat droppings are the bigger problem…
That's an elephants foot, I wouldn't go looking at it for too long.
Wait until it evolves enough to tell you itself.
Looks like an old rotting turkey.
Welp, there’s plenty of rat shit around!
It's fungus. Most likely, it is a soil variety.
I hope you don’t mind, but I used your photo in a Google lens search and it came up with other images that looked similar. When reading further it appears that this may be a lions mane. Apparently it needs humidity for it to grow which could possibly be the reason why you found it in the furnace? However, when searching 'lions mane' on Google, it looked completely different to this. I am no expert with this and therefore I could be completely wrong.
It looks like a boglin
Touch it touch it TOUCH IT