"He didn't have a stitch on," Lt. Gary Branson of the Hayward Police Department said, referring to Michael Urbano.
The 23-year-old man came home early Saturday morning and, finding himself locked out and without his keys, tried to enter the single-story house through its chimney.
"He told us he took off his clothes because as he was going down the chimney the clothes would rub up against it and slow him down," Branson said. "If it was skin on cement he felt he would go down easier."
Urbano's effort ended disastrously when a cable-television wire he used to lower himself snapped. He fell and was wedged in a section of the chimney tapering into the home's fireplace.
For the next four hours he cried out for help. A neighbour called police and fire fighters, who dislodged Urbano, Branson said. Officers booked Urbano for being under the influence of drugs, he added.