Over the past couple of years, I have written a couple of times about raccoons damaging the pontoon boat we keep up at our lake place. One time they really destroyed it and then, after it was fixed, they damaged it again.

Well, things took an uglier twist this week.

On Monday, I had a call from the person who looks after our lake house asking if someone had had a dog in the house. As she walked around the house and described what she was seeing, I knew that there was no dog involved. What she described could only be one thing.

Raccoons!

Yes, a raccoon or perhaps multiple ones had gotten into the house and wrecked things badly, tearing up some things and soiling others.

Evidence showed that they had gained entry via the chimney.

I had to be out of town this week so I missed the festivities of catching a raccoon in the bathtub and then entering it into our raccoon relocation program. I also missed the smokebomb put in the fireplace, forcing another raccoon to pop out of the chimney, scamper across the roof, run down the television antenna tower ...

and get ...

on ...

the ...

boat!

(Okay, I made up that last part but I am guessing that is where it eventually went. These are very genteel raccoons we're dealing with. Wish I would have been there to smack it over the head with a shovel, followed by a quick dunk in the lake.)