Early last month I discovered raccoons in my chimney.  Though I was surprised to see them, it wasn’t a shock that they were there.  I’ve seen raccoons around my yard many times in the past and I’ve been negligent about putting a chimney cap on the old brick chimney so the fact that they finally moved in is more of a wake-up call than anything else.  Of course at first I didn’t know it was raccoons, truthfully I thought that a bird had nested in the chimney because I would only hear soft peeps from the babies and the occasional clunk from the mother.

After a few weeks, though, it seemed odd to me that I was still hearing these sounds and they were only getting louder.  I had thought for sure that the baby birds would have moved out of the nest by now so I set my old, rickety ladder up against the wall and climbed up to the chimney to investigate the sounds I had been hearing.  Well, when I shined my flashlight down the chimney I can assure you that I wasn’t prepared to see two big reflecting eyes staring back up at me.  That was where the surprise came in you see.  I had thought a little bird was living there but in fact it was a raccoon in my chimney!

That’s when I started calling around for help, at my age I wasn’t going to get that big raccoon out of my chimney by myself, and I was almost positive that she had young living in there as well. I soon discovered that she did in fact have young, six of them to be exact.  Last night while I was letting my Yorkie out to the bathroom, I watched the mother raccoon jump out of the chimney and run down my tree.  I was just too curious not to go look down the chimney again to look for babies.  When I did I was greeted by lots of small growls and 12 eyes frozen under my light.  Well, now I really need help.  I’ve got someone coming to do an inspection tomorrow so hopefully they can get these little rascals out of my chimney for good.

For about a year we have been hearing raccoons in our chimney.  Of course we didn’t know it was raccoons in the chimney, if we did it would have been much easier to solve.  What actually happened was my darling 5 year-old daughter, Lydia, could hear noises coming from her closet (that backs up to the chimney).  I can’t even count how many nights she ran into my room sobbing, terrified of the monsters in her closet.  It was kind of my fault, she only connected the sounds to monsters after I let her watch Monsters Inc. Before that, she thought it was Santa’s elves making sure she was being nice.

The problem was that whenever she heard sounds, I would go into her room, check the closet, and not hear anything.  At first I played along and told her I would stand watch for the monsters until she fell asleep, but that only lasted for about a month.  After that I told her to stop playing silly games and to go back to bed, monsters didn’t exist (I know I’m a horrible mom but there are only so many hours of sleep you can lose watching for imaginary things!).  What I think is odd is that I didn’t hear the raccoons in the chimney once during that month, I didn’t hear them at all until about two weeks ago!

My encounter with the “monsters”, was much less terrifying for me than poor Lydia.  I was putting her laundry away while she was at school and my husband was at work, and I heard small chirping sounds coming from behind the wall.  I pressed my ear to it but couldn’t hear anything.  That was until I tucked Liddy in for bed that night and heard them again, this time coupled with loud scratching sounds.  When I told Glenn, my husband, he went out with a camera and threaded it down through a hole in the roof that used to be a chimney.  Sure enough there they were, five baby raccoons in the chimney.

After calling a local wildlife specialist, he confirmed what we saw.  A mother and her five kits had taken up residence in the old chimney that had been closed off for years.  He also helped us remove them from the chimney and clean up any contaminants that were left behind.  My poor baby girl, for a year she thought there were monsters in her closet and it was only raccoons in the chimney!

I know this story sounds crazy, but when I heard my husband called the police at 2 a.m. reporting a raccoon home invasion, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing either.  We have lived in Park City, Utah for about 15 years now, and I can assure you that we are very familiar with the wildlife that lives here.  I’ve seen everything from mice to moose in my backyard and raccoons are very common. We haven’t had too much trouble with them, as long as we keep our garbage can locked shut and don’t leave our dog’s food outside that is.  They mostly just scavenge for food around the neighborhood, never bothering anyone too much.  At least they didn’t until 4 nights ago.

Now I have heard some stories about people who have had raccoons get into their attics and homes and cause some serious damage, but when you hear those things you always tell yourself “it could never happen to me, right?”  I don’t know, maybe it was just me, but I considered my home animal-proof. I was so wrong. My dog Bruno ate some pork that day (thanks to my youngest son Bridger) and was having some terrible stomach problems, if you get what I’m hinting at.  Instead of risking the mess he could make while we slept, I left the cover off of the doggy door so he could move freely outside to do his business.  My other dog, Emma, is so old that she can barely see let alone hear, she is not fit for duty anymore, but I left her to watch the downstairs anyway.  Those were my first mistakes.  My second mistake was that I didn’t put away the leftovers after dinner, I never liked salmon on the second day and figured leaving it out would give me an excuse to toss it out the next morning.  Between the fish, bread, butter, and pasta left on the counter; the open entrance to my home; and my two watch dogs being out of commission I set myself up for the raccoon home invasion.

Taking advantage of the open doggy door, two raccoons snuck into my house while we slept and went rampant.  They tore into the bread, ate the leftover fish (which I’m not too upset about), broke into our pantry, tore apart the cushions on the bar stools, and last but certainly the worst, they somehow turned on the faucet.  Well after two hours of this mass destruction, Bruno finally lumbered back inside and let us know what was happening.  My husband snuck downstairs, .22 in hand, ready to face the intruders only to find raccoons! After chasing them out of the house, he called the only number he could think of, 911, and reported our raccoon home invasion.

After going through and replacing all of the water damaged laminate in our kitchen, salvaging what food we could, and replacing the rest, we found our savings being stretched and our patience growing thin.  Nobody could have prepared us for this, no one! Truthfully, I’m thankful that it wasn’t worse than it was, but I want to warn you! If you know there are raccoons in your area, doggy doors can be dangerous, especially if you have food sitting out.  You don’t want to end up like we did, the victims of a raccoon home invasion.