Cleaned a flue in Salem last week that had a 30-year-old squirrel stash inside

Pulled up to a house in Salem, Massachusetts, lady says her fireplace has been smoking for years. I climb up top with my camera and see the flue is basically packed to the top with acorns and old shell bits. Took me about 2 hours to vacuum it all out with my heavy duty shop vac. The difference after I was done was night and day - she could actually see daylight through the chimney. Has anyone else found a crazy animal stash like that?

4 comments

4 Comments

jesse_fisher2mo ago

Whoa, that does sound like a lot of work! But is a few acorns really that big of a deal for a fireplace?

the_paul2mo agoMost Upvoted

Got a call a few years back about a chimney that was making weird scratching sounds at night. Turned out a raccoon had made a nest right up in the damper area and had been dragging in old insulation from the attic for bedding. The whole thing was a mess of fiberglass and raccoon fur. Had to pull the whole damper assembly apart to get it cleaned out.

alice3361mo ago

Figure out if the raccoon was coming back after you cleaned it. Sometimes they have babies up there and will claw their way back through the roof or side vents to get to them. Did you have to put up any exclusion mesh to keep them out for good?

victor_adams1mo ago

And that reminds me of the time my neighbor called me over because he kept hearing this weird thumping in his attic. We figured it was a squirrel or a bird, but no. Turns out a family of flying squirrels had taken over his old Christmas decorations box. They'd chewed through the plastic tub and were using the fake garland and tinsel for a nest. Took us an hour just to figure out where the noise was coming from because they'd stop every time we got close. By the time we pulled the box out, it was just a tangled mess of tinsel, chewed up cardboard, and squirrel droppings. He trashed the whole thing.