I was so happy we called a Salt Lake County exterminator to get the dead raccoon out of our chimney, especially after witnessing the horror show of its removal.
My wife and I saved up for years, and finally bought a beautiful vacation cabin near a beautiful, mountainous national park, and I had grandiose ideas of hiking nearly every day we spent in our cabin property. Truthfully, we spend more time just sitting on the porch, looking out at the view, bird-watching, talking or sitting in silence together. We enjoy living our dream. And, I swear, my wife had more fun furnishing and decorating the cabin than our actual home! We put a lot of effort into our vacation spot to make it a romantic getaway for us for some weekends, and a great place for the kids and their families to join us for holidays.
So you can imagine how awful it was to show up for a long weekend, walk in the door and get hit with a nasty smell. I’ve never smelled anything like it, but it was rancid. My wife couldn’t take it after a while and retreated to the car while I investigated. As I searched for the source of the smell, she called a Salt Lake County Exterminator. The cabin wasn’t really damaged, but I was certain that smell was going to be near to impossible to get out of the front room furniture, where the odor was the greatest. Finally, it overpowered even me, so I sat in the car and waited for the Salt Lake County Exterminator to arrive, assuring her it would all be okay and we’d still be able to enjoy the weekend.
When the Salt Lake County Exterminator arrived, he walked right over to the fireplace in the front room, shined a flashlight up there, poked around a little, and said, “Yep, you’ve got a dead raccoon in the chimney.” He explained that raccoons will often climb down the chimney from outside, most often to bear their young, but sometimes just to find a quiet place to die.
What followed soured the entire weekend for me, but made me grateful I hadn’t attempted to remove the raccoon myself. The dead raccoon was so far into the decomposition process that he had to remove it in pieces. Yes, pieces. It was like a horror movie. I was confused at the sound I kept hearing, as he worked. It sounded like rain coming from the chimney. When I realized what it was, I had to beat a hasty retreat out of the cabin, close on the heels of my wife. Maggots rained down from the raccoon corpse down the Salt Lake County Exterminator’s head and arms as he removed the raccoon.
Needless to say, we did not spend the weekend there, but we were happy his services included cleaning and sanitizing our cabin. We didn’t have to do anything other than finding a nice hotel room in the area, and planning our next weekend getaway.