Hey, you’re not Santa Claus!
Last Friday night, after coming home from our 12-hour Radiothon at Connestoga Mall, Carole & I had a light supper, then settled into the loveseat to unwind with a little TV. All of a sudden, the doorbell rings, and standing there was this couple I’d never seen before. “Hi, sorry to bother you” they said, “but we just noticed a raccoon…a very large one…climb down your chimney.” Wonderful! We’ve lived in this house for 13 years, and for 13 years I’ve been meaning to put a cap on that chimney. So, I figured this might be a good time to do that. I’d get up in the morning, go to the hardware store & pick one up, climb up on the roof & install it myself. Well, my first thought was “Hey, wait a minute. That’s a long way up.” My second thought: much worse…”What if the raccoon is still in the chimney when I put the cap on? He gets trapped in their & dies. Wouldn’t that be a lovely smell! Or, worse still…what if he comes running up the chimney as I’m putting the cap on?”
I like to think the one thing that over the years has probably saved me thousands of dollars, and endless frustration, is that I know when a job’s too big for me. This definitely required a professional. So Saturday morning I picked up the phone, and booked somebody to come out as soon as possible. Tuesday? Fine. The lady on the phone told me the price, and then told me there would be an extra charge if the animal was still in there, and it had to be removed. And…then there’s also the possibility that it was a female raccoon who decided my chimney would be a great place to have her babies.
Tuesday afternoon rolls around. A nice young guy by the name of Kamil shows up. On time! Well, actually early. Even better. I take him downstairs & show him the pipe that comes out of the wall that used to be hooked up to a woodstove that the previous owner had (unsafely) put in. He pulls off the cover, gags a bit, stumbles back a little, and says “this is the worst case scenario”. Imagine how thrilled I am at this point. I try to open the basement windows. They don’t open. Thirteen years of trying to get around to painting the windows. These are two I actually did get around to painting. And I guess I painted them shut.
Well, after he (how do I put this delicately) shoveled some of the…stuff…out of the pipe, he said something that was a big relief for both of us. First of all, the raccoon wasn’t in my chimney right this minute. (I’d had visions of this thing…they can be up to 40 pounds!…flying out into the room, and just going berserk) And secondly, the raccoon didn’t have babies in my chimney. I learned that raccoons like to have a couple of chimney-homes. The lucky ones like me have their chimney turned into a toilet. The unlucky ones have their chimneys turned into nurseries! He then told me I ought to warn my neighbours, because they don’t have caps on their chimneys either. And they’ve had more than 13 years. Yes, their windows look better, and their lawns are golf-course quality, but at least I can say I was the first…well unless you count John, and Doug, and Mike…well, maybe not the first, but at least I can say I have been able to hang a “No Vacancy ” sign on my chimney.