Is That a Raccoon in Your Chimney? Or Are You Just Unhappy to See Me?

 A few months ago, as I began my banishment from Brooklyn, Lisa and I were sitting in our living room relaxing.  There is no television as we use it for reading, listening to music, and strange as it sounds: we talk to each other.

Slowly we became aware of a scratching noise coming from our chimney, this was followed by a chattering; which I wrongly thought was coming from some birds taking shelter in the chimney.  This is kind of like when you hope that the grinding sound in your car is going to go away. And it usually does just before your tire goes flying off into the next lane.

After consulting with my neighbors (who are both my gurus and jailers during my captivity) it becomes apparent that we have a case of the raccoons. Now raccoons are cute, if you are watching them in a nature film, a cartoon, or in the Guardians of the Galaxy movies; but in real life they are the bringers of ticks, property damage, rabies or at the very least some really painful bites that will lead to rabies.

I called four Maine pest control companies to see who can help me out, and received the customer services I have since come to expect from the most northeastern of states. Two companies never returned my calls, one did so nearly a month later (after which point I could have been dead, or rabid, or both). However, the fourth company was the charm.

The guy pulled up in his truck and climbed the roof with grace and ease. He looks down the chimney and takes some photos and then came off the roof while my home-owners insurance took a sigh of relief.

He explained that there in my chimney was a mother racoon, which he referred to as a "sow," and two or three pups. He then explained that he will have to come back and put a trap at the top of my chimney and catch the mother when she goes out to look for food. Then he will close off the bottom of my chimney and open the flue to catch the pups.

Then come the upsell. In Maine there is always the upsell. He tells me ticks may come off  of the mother and that we may need to have the area treated. So dazzled and ignorant am I that I buy into it without question as my wallet screams. But as the old television commercials used to say, "Wait! There is more!"

He will then, like Charon, have to ferry the captured racoons to a special island where they can stay. My mind wanders to a vision of an island with a civilization of racoons living there. I do not want my plane crashing there, ever.

The exterminator goes on to talk of the sow being seperated from her pups and his own life down south. He starts to get teary and takes off his cap and scrunches it against his chest just as a Civil War soldier does upon seeing his side's flag after a long and hard battle (or at least how an actor playing a Civil War soldier does in the movies).

I have to ask him if he is okay. He recovers, and when I ask him when can he start he tells me it will be in a few weeks as it is the start of the summer and he has to set up some other contracts first. Of course we never see him again.

In the interim, before we gave up all hope of seeing our cap scrunching friend again, we tried to cope with the scratching noises and chattering. What made it so bad was that the sounds were intermittent. Sometimes there was the hope that they had gone away, then they would start with the chattering again. It was like we were living in some sort of forgotten Edgar Allan Poe story.  Banging on the chimney or playing loud music would silence them for awhile, but the relief was always short lived.

Finally we decided to light some incense in the chimney to see what would happen (some of you might think we should have lit a fire, but that would have been cruel, plus you'd have to deal with the scent of burnt racoons, possibly forever). With the house smelling like a 1970s head shop the racoons started to make even more noise, and then went quiet.

That evening Lisa and me were having coffee in the kitchen when we heard a noise along our roof. This was followed by  a scratching sound as the racoon climbed down the corner of our house. Stunned to see people in the structure that was holding up her chimney she stopped to stare at us for a moment and then finished her climb to the ground while holding one of her pups by the scruff of its neck in her mouth.

On the ground the pup tried to go its own way, but the racoon mother practiced some tough teeth snapping love and put it into line. Over the next three hours she repeated the same trip; though her other pups were less willful than the first one.

Nature is nice, nature is good, until you have to live amongst it. Looking closely at the racoon I realized while it was kind of cute it could have easily torn all three of our cats to pieces.  Lisa had tried to  make peace with nature by feeding the birds outside our window.  She attached to our lilac bush a homemade feeder made from a spent toilet paper roll tube and some peanut butter. and seeds. It was found the next day torn from the bush by the raccoon, you could see its teeth marks in the cardboard.

The next day we asked our neighbor if they could recommend someone to put a chimney cap on our chimney to prevent any further invasions. The guy she recommended had a biblical type name that I forget, but after only two calls he came down and put the cap on our chimney. The exterminator had offered to put the cap on, but I pictured some sort of sloppy job that would have damaged my chimney.

The lessons learned was that nature is ugly and cruel and you should not invite it in; this is why we have cities. And before you get all high and mighty with me remember all the nature films you watched as a kid. There was always some scene that made you wince, cry or cover your eyes.

If you don't believe me, listen.  There is a brown caterpillar in Maine, if you breathe in only a few of its hairs while doing yard work you are going to have problems breathing. A neighbor contracted a rash after being touched by one.  This is not to be confused with the other brown caterpillar that won't do it to you; of course I don't know the difference. I used to mock Australia for all its deadly animals, however, I think Maine is the real penal colony of self-exile. 

Outside my yard lurks a fisher, a small animal that is kind of cute, but wants to eat your pets. I have had to fortify my yard twice against it as Lisa would have noticed one of her cats was missing. Just remember: Never turn your back on nature! It ain't cute. We may have to sleep in shifts.