Me too....a racoon started chewing on the fireplace chimney
on our house in Florida, one afternoon.
I got rid of him with the garden hose,......and a lot of water.

Now that I think about it......I guess I'm lucky he didn't get mad, and jump on my head.
Anyway, a lot of wood filler,and paint later...the house was sold.
It's true...you can't make this stuff up.




How about that... we have at least one thing in common,

No coons here. I have had to chase moose off my lawn and a brown bear off the porch before though.

Once had to get a bat out of a vent pipe above the stove. Wouldn't recommend it as a way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

Coons are everywhere here. When I first moved in my current home we had to change the insulation in the attic and we found a bunch of dead ones, and I spent a whole month closing up wholes and adding metal grids all over to prevent them from prying some of the woodboards out. I would gladly shoot them but I think I'd run out of ammo pretty quick...

The racoons eat the cat food on the upper deck, the deer eat my wifes rose bushes, My Akita eats any animal that strays into the dog run, and the big yellow kitty my 5 year old wanted to pet in the driveway was a bobcat.

You guys, that's nothing! I live in constant fear of these horrible predators. These shots are from my apartment window:



This one is clearly stalking her next victim.



I'm sorry for this graphic depiction of a feeding frenzy. Poor guy couldn't run fast enough. . .

I have a roof rat problem my way in Northern California. The more traps I put in the the more of those bastards I catch. I actually found a way to get rid of them in my attic...I replaced the bathtub. You are now saying WTF? The plumber that originally put in the tub cut a huge hole for the tub drain and never patched it. The rats just climbed up the vent line and snuggled into my walls and attic. For our Canadian friends, we don't have basements in Cali, and we have crawl spaces underneath our bottom floors which critters can find many access points that you are not aware of.

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For our Canadian friends, we don't have basements in Cali, and we have crawl spaces underneath our bottom floors which critters can find many access points that you are not aware of.

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Well up here, so far north, we like to dig into the permafrost and hollow out little burrows to keep our beer.
Incidentally, any little holes at the bottom of one's house would allow cold air to come in during the winter and freeze the beer. As such, Canadian builders decided long ago to seal and insulate walls as best as possible so our beers do not freeze...and to keep energy costs reasonable.
I guess that thought concept hasn't hit some California builders yet, though i understand their brownouts are good fun.

Good luck with the rats.
We had some issues with a common grain moth in our pantry for awhile. They kept coming in with the dry goods or produce from the store. The solution was simply cutting off the food supply and zip bagging any grains, seeds or flour.
There's likely some dormant cocoons still in the walls.

Well, looks like we're all fixed up... had a buddy who's a roofer stop by after work, between the three of us, we stripped and reshingled, oh about 10% of the roof surface... one entire valley and some capping plus cut out and replaced the damaged decking.

I love when people take so much pride in their job that they do it right... ended up being more than either of us bargained for, but when you're up there saying "well, we're this far... might as well..." then, well... you might as well.

I've got about half a truck bed full of debris to take away tomorrow (he didn't have a garbage trailer), but it's fixed, and fixed right.

Another "wait, wait, wait... do I have one that can top that" story to tell in the future.

Bren R.