Raccoons In The Chimney - How To Get Them To Leave

-
It was April when I first heard the noises. They were coming from the fireplace. The noise, it turned out was coming somewhere in the chimney, just above the damper. 

Some research convinced me I had a family of raccoons living up there. As I've come to learn they had probably set up camp on the smoke shelf. They would make noise in the evenings. Mostly quiet during the day. Sometimes I would hear them purring!

I knew that trying to get rid of them at that point would put the babies in danger. So, I decided to live with them for a while. They were pretty good tenants. They didn't make too much noise. They are very good about keeping their den clean and did not use their chimney home as a bathroom. If they had, their evacuation would have become a much more urgent matter. 
I actually lived with these guys in the chimney for about two months. My research suggested that once the babies were big enough the family would move out. But after two months I got impatient. I figured the little ones were big enough to be OK. Not to mention the bigger they got the noisier they got and it was starting to wear on my nerves.

The solutions offered online were to put ammonia soaked rags nearby and to blare loud music. Rock music was especially recommended. I tried the ammonia, but it didn't seem to have any effect. So, I tried the music. I got my old boom box and set it on the edge of the fireplace. Then I found the local rock and roll station and cranked up the volume.


Most of the time I had the music blaring during the day while I was at work. But I did do it sometimes in the evening as well. After about 3 days of doing this for several hours a day... they left.

I would have thought that this was a well known solution. However, when I had a chimney sweep come in to clean up after them, I told him how I got them to leave and he had never heard of this. So, that's why I wanted to write this post and let people know this is a safe, effective solution.

I couldn't open the flu to the fireplace after they left. That's part of the reason I called the chimney sweep. Also, I wanted to get a quote for a chimney cap. He was able to install it that same day. The cleaning, cap and installation cost a total of about $400.

Now my home is raccoon free, I have a clean chimney and some peace of mind.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Cat Litter - A Review of Three Major Brands

-
Image
I like to shop at the local warehouse club store for cat litter because it means a better price and the large size containers mean that I have to shop for it less often. So, what is available there is a big part of which brands I tried. The three brands are Fresh Step, Tidy Cat and Arm & Hammer. I didn't look closely at the price. They seemed to be with in a reasonable range of each other. The most important thing for me was to find a cat litter that performed well. The reason I went through three different brands is that Fresh Step , the first brand I tried, was causing problems. It was odd how long I had been using it before I realized it was an issue. Maybe the company changed something about the litter, I don't know, but, I started noticing a couple of issues with it. This brand is very dusty. My cat is a Siberian, which means long-haired and thick fur. What I started to notice was that there was kind of a film, a residue, on her fur. I would have to wash my hands ev...
Read more

Self-Employed - How to Manage Client Requests Without Losing Your Mind

-
Image
One of the most important things that I have learned as an entrepreneur is how to handle requests from potential and current clients without losing my mind. What I mean is that when I was starting out I would go nuts every time a client wanted something. Every email and phone message felt like a crisis situation that had to be handled ASAP. The reality of the situation, however, is that my business is fitness. There are no fitness emergencies. Even if your business does handle certain types of emergencies it is valuable to know how to handle those requests that fall outside of the emergency realm. Understand that it is OK to say no. It is OK to say no to working on a weekend or even a week night. It is OK to say no to breaking your policies even though you make them up. You had good reasons for setting your policies the way that they are. Unless you feel that they are in need of modification do not change them every time a client asks you to. It's OK to say no to requests that ...
Read more

How to Get Pine Sap Off of Your Car

-
Image
Living in an old, established neighborhood with lots of mature trees is wonderful. Except for the white pine which had grown about sixty feet tall in a location that allowed it to quite effectively rain pine sap over my entire driveway. Since there are more cars here than fit in the one car garage we've had to deal with getting pine sap off the cars the last few years. It took some research online and some courage to try what people suggested but, through some trial and a lot of elbow grease I found a method that gets the sap off the car and gets the finish back to looking like it never happened. Briefly, I'd like to mention that this process is for cleaning the sap from the paint. Cleaning off the car windows can be accomplished easily with Windex and paper towels. I have been told that Windex will damage the finish on the car which is why I developed the following process instead.  Here are the things you will need: Rubbing alcohol 70% isopropyl; an old rag or a bag of c...
Read more