Raccoons

Monday evening while I was in Honolulu Susie informed me that Kevin had heard something in the upstairs fireplace. He verified that when they shook the grate you could hear something in the chimney. I wasn't sure what it was but I was afraid we had raccoons. When I returned home on Friday I verified by the sound that we had a family of raccoons nesting above the fireplace.

This morning I called Critter Control, a nationally known wildlife control company, to come remove the problem. Then looked down the chimney and verified there was a mother and several baby raccoons nesting on top of the damper.

The mother raccoon leaving the chimney

One of the technicians returned to the fireplace to chase the mother out while the other stayed on top to make sure she didn't go back down the chimney.

After the mother was gone they placed a cap over the opening so she couldn't return to the nest.

cute but glad their gone

Then they returned to the fireplace opening and reached around the damper and removed the baby raccoons. There were 6 babies in all. They put them one by one in a cage and took them away. The mother raccoon is free to roam. Right now she's under our deck and this evening I'm sure she'll be back trying to get into the nest.

It was a bit expensive but well worth the money to have this problem gone.