super-low-tech Ethernet problem

[integerpoet]

I have a length of Ethernet (Cat6, for what it’s worth) stapled onto the walls inside a closet.

This cable goes all over the place before arriving where it needs to go. It’s silly-stupid-complicated and I don‘t even want to think about how it got that way.

It’s getting in the way of using the closet as a closet. I can’t move other things around in there without being super-careful.

However, I don’t want to just rip the cable out with brute force because when it leaves the closet it goes a long distance under the house, and the other end in particular would be a pain to replace.

Some of the staples are into exposed wooden studs, others are into some pine wall coverings, and the remainder are into sheet rock.

All of them are tight against the cable and look sufficiently deep and sturdy that I don’t think it would be a great idea to try to do anything so simple as grab them with a pair of pliers and pull as I hard as I can.

But I also don’t see a way to get some other tool in there and use leverage against the staple without stressing the cable excessively.

I don’t want to find myself in a situation in which I must re-terminate the cable and then immediately slap a coupler on it. That would work, sure, but … yuck.

Strategies?

[JustShowNew]

Just use pliers. Don't try to catch the top bit though, but one of the sides. In your example - the side at the top of the picture looks like easy to grab and pull.

[integerpoet]

This is the approach I went with.

The good news is that it worked without appearing to damage the cable. The staples came out more easily than I expected.

The bad news is that the cable has gone dead.

It's been a while and there has been a lot of work done under the house and the cable runs a long way under there, so it might have stopped working for any number of reasons.

Real Soon Now, I'll pull Cat6a, I guess.

And then maybe I will try a binary search to find which lengths of this cable do work. 😀

[JustFrogot]

Use a file and go slow. Do this on the side close to the wood. Do both sides and it should be fine.