LEWISTON – Steve Fortier called the basement, – with its low ceilings and wild, cobweb ropes – a dungeon. The furnace in it: the monster.

He’s doing a job no one would envy. In a few minutes, Fortier would be straddling a broken chimney, 42 feet off the ground, getting soot laced with dead birds and brick dust blown into his face. He’s allowed a little melodrama.

Lanky and nimble, with a confessed fear of heights, Fortier has cleaned some 20,000 chimneys over 27 years.

He guessed this particular one, running through the middle of a three-story tenement, hadn’t been cleaned in 30 years.

“(The manager) got a citation from the fire department; there was stuff against the chimney and the chimney needed servicing. That’s what prompted her to call us,” said Fortier, who owns The Village Sweep.

He’d already popped open the clean-out door at the base of this main chimney and shoveled out debris, working in a tight space at a funny angle.

His assistant, Tony Rousso, wearing a black skull cap and a mask, did the same for a second chimney 20 feet away.

“Birds, leaves, it’s just amazing what you can find,” Rousso said – then he pulled out an aluminum Pepsi can and tossed it on the basement floor with a tink.

Dead animals are more common on residential jobs. Roofs are lower. Sometimes branches hang nearby. There’s easier access.

“The weirdest thing I found in a chimney was a goose,” Fortier said.

“And that squirrel today,” reminded Rousso. “That was sour.”

(The unfortunate rodent was still outside by their maroon work truck, double-bagged, little tail and head outlined in plastic.)

Both taking a cigarette break, Rousso offered a joke from the trade:

“What did the big chimney say to the little chimney?”

“You’re too young to smoke.”

With the basics finished in the basement – and halfway to filthy – Fortier took to the flat roof.

Four rows of crumbled brick from the main chimney had to come down, hauled down a ladder in buckets.

Afterward, Fortier sat on that chimney, his feet dangling, and forced down long links of fiberglass rod with a stiff brush at the end, then fished them back up. Down, up. Down, up.

“I’m getting quite a bit of resistance here so I know I’m scrubbing good,” he said.

A steady wisp of black blew out.

“One mouthful of that, it’s like getting the wind knocked out of you, but you can’t take another breath. It shuts your respiratory system right down,” he said through his mask.

Finished, he hollered down to Rousso that it was OK to vacuum out the clean-out door again, a process that kicked up thick dust.

At the end of the day, they’ll take off their caps and masks and look like raccoons, Rousso said. Sometimes, no matter how much he scrubs his nails, the soot won’t come off for days. Then there’s the silicon they deal with, and concrete and mortar.

This is their busy season.

Fortier gets frustrated – people don’t pay attention to their chimneys like they should.

“The older generation are more likely to have their chimney cleaned every one to two years,” added Rousso.

New homeowners, the men said, aren’t so vigilant.

It seemed like a confession was in order. I admitted to them, with chagrin, that I built a house in 2000 and have never given my chimney a thought since.

“Where it’s been seven years,” Rousso said, “I suggest you call us.”