Excellent story...thanks for sharing it with us.

Much of the same thing happened to me last year around Christmas.

One early, early morning I was awakened by some noise out in the
family room. I think to myself, "What is that darn cat doing?" and
then fall back to sleep. A couple of hours later, I am awakened again.
Now as I lay there listening, I soon figured out that more than a cat
is making the noise. I sneak out to the family room with club in hand
and there sits the cat in the middle of the room calmly watching the
fireplace mantle. Then I see what he is watching....a very, very
frantic squirrel trying to escape. Well as you described, this
squirrel had gotten past the cover on top of the chimney and down the
chimney. In my case, he had been able to rattle the fireplace doors
open and had spent the last couple hours shredding curtains, knocking
glass off the mantle, shredding window screens, unstuffing a stuffed
chair, ripping the Christmas tree apart and leaving soot and squirrel
crap EVERYWHERE. I swear that this blasted squirrel was the same one
you have seen on the National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation movie.

Well, the cat had thankfully done his job by confining the intruder to
one area of the house. I hate to think what this squirrel would have
done if the cat hadn't kept him to just one room.

After watching this furry homewrecker for a few minutes, it became
clear that I wouldn't have a chance to get close to him so I could
club him without him redecorating the remainder of the house. I threw
the cat in a bathroom and then proceeded to open all the doors and
windows I reach in the house without having the squirrel move to a
diferent part of the house. It took close to an hour before the scared
to death squirrel finally bounded out an open door and hit the ground
running.

To this day, I haven't figured out how he got in the chimney. The cap
is on tight and there are no openings that he could have squeezed
through.

Ironically, this spring when I was doing yard work I noticed a whiff
of hair showing from a sewer vent pipe up on my roof. Upon
investigation, I pulled out a very dead and decomposed squirrel from
the pipe. I am very lucky it did not get further down and plug my
sewer.

TMT