My best friend called me the other week, and he wanted me to help him with his fireplace.
He had recently acquired this old cabin that had a huge fireplace in the middle of the house.
I had no idea what kind of help he needed, but he was my bud and I wasn’t going to let him down by not helping. He told me he had a lot of smoke coming in whenever he tried to light the fireplace. I asked him how long it had been since the fireplace was used. He shrugged and told me a couple of years. I thought it had to be at least a decade if the looks of the place meant anything. His wife was busy trying to get rid of at least half the dirt and cobwebs while he was trying to see if the fireplace worked. I used a flashlight to look up into the chimney and I told him he may want to get rid of the fire. I could see something in the chimney and I was hoping it was only a lot of soot, but I wasn’t sure. I told him we may want to call an exterminator before lighting the fireplace again. He thought I was crazy and told me the chimney cleaner was going to be there in a couple days. That would get rid of the clog in the chimney. He said he just wanted to repair the broken hearth and replace some bricks. The more he pounded on the bricks, the more I became worried. I remembered when bees had built a nest in my childhood home’s chimney.