Bats II:The Little Winged Bastards Strike Back

Allow me to provide an update on the bat saga. We had a bat specialist out to bat-proof the house. This involves sealing every crack like opening into the upper part of the house and then constructing "bat doors" over the entry points they are using. The idea of the bat doors is that the bats will not be able to get back in after they leave. The Bat Doors are basically funnel-shaped netting that leads away from the entry point (kinda like the reverse of a lobster pot). I know for a fact that it worked exceedingly well. How?

Well, when I brought in a company that specializes in such things to evict my bats, it never occurred to me to consider where the evicted bats might go. I guess I just imagined them flying around my house somewhat frustrated by not being able to get back in. Then, with a tiny bat shrug, they'd take off and move on to someone else's house or a bat cave or something.

As it turns out, that's not how it works. I found this out as I sat down to have a cup of coffee today on my deck. I looked down at our patio table and saw the unmistakable shape of bat droppings. Like a character in a "B" movie, I flashed back to the words of the bat dude (who, BTW, had one of the sweetest mullets ever). "They leave their droppings as they fly out to go eat. Basically, you find the droppings, look up and that's where they're going in and out." I did exactly that. I looked at the droppings on my table. I looked up, there was my closed patio umbrella. We kicked the bats out of my house and they moved into the umbrella. Bastards!

My deck had become a very unappetizing place to have a cup of coffee. Yuck.

I adjourned to my PC desk and fired up the scary Google. You see, in telling and retelling my story to my friends and co-workers, I got two useful tidbits of info. The first a helpful tip I'll share that's useful if you're ever in the same situation I was with a bat flying around the house and a screaming child. The second is a way to reduce my risk of this happening again.

1) If ever a bat is flying around your house, I am told that simply opening a window is not enough. You need to throw something small out of it. Bats, supposedly, are attracted to the motion. I don't know this for a fact. I do know a tennis racket works just fine.

2) If you put up a Bat House in your back yard, the bats are supposedly less likely to go in your house. Bat House? I said? Like a bird house? Yeah, exactly. Unbelievably enough, there are such things. Looks like I'm gonna buy one. The website says if I have a colony of 100 or so bats, I'll get "natural mosquito control". I'll also have the coolest house at Halloween.

You've won this round, you little winged bastards. But the war's not over.

BATS!!!!

Last night we had a visit from a rat with wings. It's safe to say that if a 5 year old could have a heart attack my daughter would have had one on the spot. We were settling into bed when all of a sudden this little bugger started flying around the room. After much screaming (by them, not me), I instructed the kids to get under the covers until it left the room.

It did leave and I closed the doors behind the bat and followed it outside. My daughter was left lying in her bed going completely bananas. My son is lying quietly. Apparently his fondness for Batman is helping him cope.

I opened the sliding glass door and a couple windows, hoping the bat would leave as it circled the house. It didn't despite passing them several times. Eventually, it stopped flying around. Hmm... What to do.

I got my wife on the phone so she could tell me where our tennis rackets are and so she could talk to Emma while Daddy takes care of our invader. I found the tennis racket in the basement and looked for where our winged friend has gone. It was no longer flying about.

I found it perched on a piece of molding near the drop down attic stairs. I looked at it for a moment and pondered it's fate. It clearly didn't want to hurt anyone. And yet, here it was terrifying me with it's potential of being rabid and terrifying my kids with it's very presence. Could I really coax it out of the house? Is that even possible? I had the sliding doors wide open and the dumb thing flew right past them. While I'm doing that, what of my still screaming daughter - equally terrified that the bat's gonna "get" her or me?

I knew what I had to do. I terminated the bat with extreme prejudice. I put on yellow dishwashing gloves, picked it up, wrapped it up in a plastic bag with said gloves and put it out on the deck. Phew! The family is safe!

I came back to my kids and we all huddled in my bedroom. Emma had a lot to say about the bat. What did it look like? Why did I kill it? Do you think it came in here because it wanted the mosquito I saw flying around? Eventually, I answered her questions and calmed her down. She slowly stopped trembling as she lined up all the bits of information she had about this traumatic experience. Daddy had to kill the bat because it was proably sick and didn't want to leave.

I asked my son, "What did you think of the bat?" He said, "What bat?" "You know, the thing that was flying around the house?", I said. "Oh yeah, it was flying, huh?" He laughed. He's one cool customer, that Jonny.

Today, we'll get a visit from "the bat people" to make sure this never happens again.