Surprise Visitor

This has certainly been an exciting few days around here.

On June 3rd around 8:30am, I heard some strange thumping noises coming from our chimney. I turned off the radio to listen thinking it was my neighbour banging around at the side of the house. I looked out but couldn't see him, then checked his driveway and saw he was not even home.

I continued listening and the noise got louder with the addition of scratching. As it progressed I could hear something in the chimney and then thumping and scratching on the damper.

Needless to say I was quite disturbed to think that an animal of some kind was in my chimney. I got out a couple of fireplace pokers and jammed them between the frame and doors, so just in case whatever was in there escaped it would not be able to open the doors. Call me silly, but I had these visions of me being confronted by a very angry whatever was in there (a tiger maybe???) or worse yet, my dog trying to get it and ending up bitten.

So better safe than sorry I always say.

I know, you're probably thinking ... how can someone my size be scared of a rodent??? Trust me, I didn't count my pulse but my heart was pounding.

Then I called my chimney cleaning company to ask if they did animal removal.

Yes thank goodness they do, so we booked an appointment for the following morning around 11:00am. That was June 4th, so I had to live with whatever was in my chimney for an entire day and night.

YIKES!!!!!

Well, they came in the next day, banged around on the damper, looked up the chimney with a trouble light and told me that whatever had been there appeared to have vacated the premises.

Thank goodness.

So the technician proceeded to change the chimney cap as the old one was rusty and holey enough to admit small visitors. Then he cleaned the chimney and gave me a bill for $241.45.

Well, last night Don and I were sitting watching television and I heard a slight thump. I immediately grabbed the remote and muted the television.

You can imagine with the silence what we proceeded to hear. Scratching, thumping and more scratching. Very unnerving.

So I grabbed the phone (this was 7:30pm mind you) and called the chimney cleaners and surprisingly someone answered the phone. I told her that our visitor was still on the premises, so she re booked an appointment for today June 5th at 1:00pm.

Here is a picture of what they found hiding on what is called the smoke shelf which is located directly above the damper. Now bear in mind, this little guy has had nothing to eat or drink for 3 1/2 days, so he was quite quiet and allowed the chimney technician to take his picture with the scope and as well to poke him a little with a long armed mirror.

But, when he reached up (covered with 3 sets of heavy duty gloves) to try to remove him, the growling and snapping was ferocious.

Wouldn't you think he'd appreciate that somebody was rescuing him????? After all once a squirrel is down inside a chimney they are done for, they cannot climb back out. Surely he realized the desparate situation he was in .......... or maybe not.


Here is the technician looking at the screen on his camera through the scope inserted into the chimney. (Sorry for the blurry pictures ... I was really was quite nervous).

Now scan down to the next picture.

This picture is the squirrel (although you can't seem him) trying to escape into my house. Luckily this young man had very quick reflexes and actually caught him in mid air and quickly removed him to the back garden where the poor thing took off like a bat out of hell.

The bill for today yet another $162.75.

So to have my chimney cleaned, a new cap installed and a mangy little squirrel removed came to the grand total of $404.20. And the darn squirrel only weighed about 1 - 1 1/2 pounds.


Betcha he won't be coming back to visit here any time soon. He didn't seem too impressed with the hospitality.

Well, after two nights of not sleeping, hopefully I will sleep like a baby tonight. In fact I might go get my jammies on right now, make a cup of tea and settle down for a nice comfy relaxing evening. Hmmm, maybe I could talk Don into picking up dinner, so I really stay relaxed.