I heard something scratching around in our chimney first thing in the morning. As an avid animal lover, it immediately began to stress me out. I quickly began contacting our property manager (who continually proves to be worthless), animal control, as well as wild animal rehab centers to see if there was anything that could be done. Animal control came (super friendly and helpful), but explained that because our chimney was so weird, the only way to get the little guy out would be to drop a rope through the opening of the chimney at the top and hope it climbs out.
It had been a really awful week, and this was just the cherry on top. Hoping to find another answer, I posted to NextDoor asking for help. Paul immediately replied, asked a couple questions about the chimney, then said, "I can be there in about an hour". We spoke on the phone and he made sure I was comfortable with him getting up on the roof before heading over.
Sure enough, Paul showed up with his ladders and rope within the hour. I work from home, so I was unable to join him on the roof, but he took charge and immediately took action. He actually had to take a second ladder onto the roof to get to the chimney. I believe he even had to use some tools to get the chimney cap off before running the rope through.
While he was up there, he found a squirrels nest outside the flue pipe. Ah ha!! Must be the culprit.
Once the rope had reached down to the fireplace, he had me light some incense to help smoke the critter out. We waited for a bit and didn't hear any noise. He offered to leave the rope overnight and come back the next day to retrieve it, but at this point we figured that the squirrel may have been making noise up at the top of the chimney and was not actually stuck in the chimney somewhere.
I felt a little foolish, but at ease knowing that there wasn't a little animal trapped somewhere.
While on the roof, Paul also made us aware of the hail damage. We are just renters, so we hope our property managers are on top of that, but it was nice to know that he was also looking out for other areas that needed repair. He also explained what needed to be done to keep the squirrels from making nests in that spot.
Paul is a kind and caring neighbor who went out of his way to help me with something I knew nothing about. The amount of stress I had been experiencing in the past week had really been wearing on me. Paul took that stress and turned it into relief. I can't thank him enough for his help.
I highly recommend using Paul for any renovation or restoration needs. His patience, ingenuity, and kindness make him an A++ in my book. Thank you so much, Paul!! read more