There's something lurking in my chimney...

[daftscotslass]

6 months ago we bought a Victorian (late 1800s, about 1890) home. We've had many interesting troubles involving chimneys, floors and sewage but today's was a bit different. Many years ago each of the rooms - both bedrooms and the living room had open fires. Decades ago the fireplaces in both rooms were boarded over and the living room fireplace covered too. One chimney is demolished (see other thread!) but two are still open and, although disused and boarded over, they still need to be ventilated. This means that we have a vent in our bedroom wall that looks like this:



My boyfriend is on a course in London this week so I've been on my own and very aware of the creaks and groans in the old building. Last night I kept hearing a rustling noise but dismissed it. This morning I heard it again but had to go to work. This evening I went back to investigate. The vent is backed with mesh so you can see very little without taking it off. Rustle rustle, scratch scratch. ARRGH! I felt brave and levered off the vent to expose the small hole left to vent the chimney. Couldn't see anything so decided to stick my camera down. Here's what I found:



This is a Jackdaw, a type of crow. A few panicked calls later and some not-so-great advice from my crow-hating uncle (let it die and then fish it out) I tried to phone the SSPCA but to no avail. My first idea was to cover everything in the bedroom, open the window and hope it would come out.

....

It did. I put all the lights on, left the room and it was out and sitting on the curtain pole. Seemingly unharmed it flew out the window and into the distance.

At least I know it's not ghosts!

[piggly wiggly]

That is so funny, I am glad your plan worked and he made it out safe and happyily flew away. I wonder how he got in there?

[ortal]

Aw shucks I was hopeing it was Santa =(

[muffin]

I think they like to nest in chimneys. If your chimney flue bends he maybe fell down and couldn't work out how to get out again. You are very brave to have opened up the vent alone, ick, imagine if it had been a rat! Glad you checked. Poor little guy, he's free now though! You made a difference to another animal. You have a mean uncle!

[Susan9608]

Glad to know it wasn't ghosts or ghouls.

We once had a family of raccoons living in our chimney. I have never understood the point of having a chimney in Texas, since it's never cold enough to light a fire. Perhaps that's why the raccoons decided to make it their home. We got all sorts of bad advice, too, on how to get them out. Most people said we should "smoke" them out by lighting a fire! Doesn't that seem mean? We ended up putting a little bowl of peppermint scented oil in the bottom of the chimney; they didn't like it and left.

But they didn't go far - they took up residence on our roof under the overhang of our balcony. I was afraid to walk out our back door (since it was directly under the balcony) because I thought they might jump down on me. We tried the peppermint oil on the balcony, which scared most of them away, but one tiny baby was left. I felt so sorry for it, that I left food out for it, but when it started scratching at the balcony door, wanting to be let in, my husband drew the line, called animal control, and they came to collect it. Apparently, it was relocated to a wild life refuge. Since it had learned not to be afraid of people, it needed a special place to live.

Chimneys seem like more trouble than they're worth.

[i-love-nev]

Originally Posted by ortal

Aw shucks I was hopeing it was Santa =(

OMG! Now thats funny! *rolls on floor laughing* he he he.

[i-love-nev]

Originally Posted by Susan9608

Chimneys seem like more trouble than they're worth.

Yes! Yes they are!

We had a family of crows in our chimney! 2 adults then came 3 eggs, Then 3 chicks, Then my mum wouldnt go into the lounge for 3 weeks because I said "We have to let the mum and babies live in the nest for at least 3 weeks" and she HATES crows so she wouldnt go in the lounge, whilst me and my brothers took out the fireplace, and put board up so I could take the board down, feed them (meal worms and a few fresh worms from the garden!), and check up on them, then put th board back up to give them peice, after 3 weeks we made a big box and removed mum and babies and put them in the biggest tree up in the woods and they all flew away happily *tears of joy*.

[TrekkiePiggies]

My apartment has this horribly tacky gas fireplace--you turn on a light switch and foom! Four jets of blue flame erupt behind a fake log made of concrete. I had the gas and the pilot light switched off and then never really thought about it for a while.

Then a few months back, I was sitting at my computer, home alone, next to the fireplace, when I heard "BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzTHUN K."

It sounded like someone had just taken a power-drill to the chimney.

Then I heard "Bzt. Bzzt. Bztbztbzzzt. scrable scrabble scrabble."

By this point I was pretty thoroughly freaked out. I grabbed my weapon of choice (the broom), and edged cautiously towards the buzzing noise. I edged aside the humidifier that lived in front of the fireplace, and there was the culprit. It was the biggest, freakiest bug I'd ever seen in my life outside of a Nature program. It looked like a huge fuzzy tick, and was as big as the first joint of a thumb. I am not a tick person. Quite a few bugs give me no problem at all, but things that look like ticks freak me out. My cousin got Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever from a tick bite a few years back and still doesn't know who her children are.

I retreated to the back hallway, broom in hand, and called my office manager, hoping maybe the nice maintenance guy could do some bug-squishing or something. No luck. They said to kill the bug and bring it to the office so they could check and see if it was a cockroach or other pest.

I edged over to the bug and gave it a few swats with the broom, but this just made it agitated and it started to fly around the living room. It started repeatedly banging into the bars of my bird's cage (5/8" apart), but was too big to get in. I was very glad of that, because my poor parrotlet was petrified. The bug was bigger than his head.

So I called my mom. She lives two hours away. I didn't expect her to get off work to come squish a bug for me or anything like that, I was just completely freaked out and not thinking straight, and needed some reasonable advice. She pretty much told me to get a grip and squish it with a shoe.

At that point the bug hit the sliding-glass door pretty hard and fell down onto the floor, where it buzzed feebly. I figured that this was my chance, so I stuck a cardboard box over the end of my broom and rammed the bug into the wall until it stopped moving. Once I was sure it was dead, I picked it up with a ziplock bag and sealed it in.

I headed for the manager's office. This being a university town, I managed to run into an entomologist ten feet outside my front door. He thought the bug was the coolest thing ever and examined it for me, saying he'd never seen anything like it before, but that it seemed to be a gigantic bee of some sort. I was really glad It'd squished the thing, because it had a huge stinger!

So, that was my chimney saga.