Something Is Living in Your Chimney: A Texas Field Guide
Scratching above the fireplace at night means your uncapped flue has tenants. In North Texas, it's one of three: chimney swifts, a raccoon, or squirrels — and one of them is protected by federal law, which makes 'just smoke them out' both cruel and illegal.
Chimney swifts: the protected ones
Small birds that chatter in fast bursts (often mistaken for bats), swifts nest in chimneys May through August. They're protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act — nests with eggs or young cannot be removed, full stop. The lawful play: wait for the brood to fledge (a few weeks), then clean and cap the same week. We schedule exactly that.
Raccoons: the mothers
A raccoon in the flue is almost always a female with kits — your chimney is a perfect hollow tree. Eviction works with her instincts: targeted harassment (light, noise, predator scent at the right times) makes her relocate the kits herself within a few nights. Then the cap goes on before she reconsiders.
Squirrels: the trapped
Squirrels usually aren't nesting — they fell in and can't climb the smooth flue walls. A heavy rope dropped down gives them an exit ladder by morning. Repeat visitors mean overhanging branches plus an open flue: trim one, cap the other.
After the eviction
Whatever lived there left things behind: nesting debris (kindling parked above your firebox), droppings (histoplasmosis risk with bird and bat waste), and odors that worsen in summer heat. The full job is removal, flue cleaning and sanitizing, a draft check, and a screened cap — because the only animal-proof chimney is a capped one.
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