Bats and other scary creatures

[Luika]

This is not food related other than the fact that I am no longer planning to do any of the food prep for Thursday-Saturday visitors that I had scheduled for tonight.

We have a vacation home in northern Michigan. I drove up tonight (one day early) to prep for breakfasts/lunches/dinners for the next few days. My husband plans on coming up with the guests tomorrow morning.

I walked into our house and discovered a bat "sleeping" on our stone fireplace wall. To me, bats are like mice with wings. Mice, bats, snakes... it's not happening!! What to do!!

I ended up walking to a neighbor's house on the next block where a 65-year-old man lives. He is the only neighbor who is up here full time. I persuaded him to come and help me with the bat. After arriving back at our house, and he discovering I have placed a baseball hat and a frisbee on my head (bats love to get in your hair, right?), he tells me to wait outside, realizing I would be of no help. After about 15 minutes, he finally got the bat out of the house with the help of a bed sheet.

So now I'm sitting here on my second glass of Cabernet, concerned that bats travel in pairs! Just thought I'd share! Have a good night!:rolleyes:

[kwormann]

We had bats in my old church building and they would fly out and swoop around sometimes during Wednesday night choir practice.....and the director made us continue with practice :(

[Susan]

Oh, poor Louise! That would be a bit of a shock to walk in on a bat in your home! Have another glass of wine...

Seriously though, here's an informative web site about bats: http://www.batconservation.org/ The info they have on the site may alleviate any further fears.


~~~
This page is especially useful: http://www.batconservation.org/content/batsandhumans/batproblem.htm

[Luika]

Susan, thank you for the speedy response... maybe I'll have another glass of wine before I visit the website.:rolleyes:

[JHolcomb]

My dad had bats in his office! It was not fun for me (I have really curly hair, ok...) but he didn't seem to mind.

[Jessica]

We have a bat that lives in our roof during the winter and somehow gets into the house once each spring. I hide and the DH chases him out with a broom, but I know one day our little housebat will appear and Brent will he out of town...

[Luika]

Yes, I called the DH. He said that he was 100 miles away... nothing he could do.

I told my 65-year-old neighbor (lives by himself... not any family or close friends around) that he WAS MY HERO! I think it made this day, week, month...
:)

I'm truly glad he was around. I think, otherwise, I would be heading 100 miles back to where I came from. There is no way I would have tried to capture that bat!

[BlueMoose]

Call me wierd, but I've always had kind of a strange fondness for bats. I think they're kind of cute in an ugly sort of way.

[Irene Bartlett]

Two years ago I spent my honeymoon in Indonesia and had the opportunity to hold a big fruit bat (the body was about 18 inches long). My brave husband took a picture but didn't dare to come closer than at least 6 yards (LOL). It's such a cute animal and these one have no teeth (I can confirm because she tried to bite me and it didn't hurt). I'm not a big fan of insects and snakes but otherwise I'm a crazy animal person (just the opposite of my husband).:)

[Luika]

My husband's comment (from 100 miles away) was to take a picture of him. NOT!!! I wouldn't even go in the same room with him.

I guess just the fact that they hang upside down while they sleep is creepy.

Bats, mice and snakes... oh, no!:eek:

[Nancy171]

DH and I bought a fixer-upper house in the country. One summer night, while lying in bed, I saw a bat swoop down from the ceiling. DH shoos the bat outside. We think this is an isolated bat incident and go back to the city. We return a week later to find bat droppings in the living room. When I move some furniture to vacuum up the droppings I find dead and dying bats.

The bats were nesting in our roof and were getting into the house through cracks in the living room ceiling beam (I guess they could get out through the beam, but not back in, which is why they died). DH caulked up the cracks (not easy when it's 15 feet up), but we still wanted to get them out of the roof. However, after talking to many bat experts (who were excited that we had "hundreds" of them) we learned that we'd have to wait several months as the bats had just had their babies -- the adult bats could fly out, but the babies couldn't fly yet. This is necessary in a "humane extraction" which works like a one-way door.

The bats could be "extracted" in late September -- just in time for our early October wedding ceremony that we inconveniently planned for the garden right under the "bat hole" to the roof. Luckily, no guests were dive-bombed, the holes have all been patched up, and the bats have presumably found new homes.

Luika, you might want to have another glass of Cabernet.

[Luika]

Nancy, what a story! One of those that you'll always remember.:p

For us, we just put our house on the market a couple of months ago. My husband's comment was hopefully the realtor didn't bring anyone through this week.

We're guessing the bat came through our fireplace and somehow through the glass fireplace doors. Isolated incident... I hope... I hope!

[SusanL]

Luika, I know that you survived your ordeal, wine does help!!

We have had individual bats from time to time in our house but the time my DH (then DB) was in Amsterdam, day before he was to come home, I was cutting the grass and hit a honeybee hive! They swarmed up and covered the house, flying down the chimney, into the basement, and tried to get upstairs in the house!! After attempts to get rid of them to no avail, I drank a whole bottle of wine, and went to bed!! I thought I was going to die that night.

Next day with thousands of bees in the basement and covering the house, I picked him up at the airport, brought him home, and he was DELIGHTED!! His father had this happen once, so he knew how to get rid of them- To this day, I still hate HONEYBEES!!:eek:

[SandyM]

We have an attic, but it's more like a crawl space - no electricity, and only two windows - one above the kitchen, and one above the garage. Both are "louvered", and presumably had screen on them.

We've heard "scratching" noises at night, and figured a bat got up there, but we didn't think anything of it. The only entrance into the house from the attic (that we know of) is a small hole in the ceiling of a closet in our bedroom that I can barely get through. (Not that I've tried, mind you - but this is my estimate on the size.)

We had our house painted last year, and the painter was on his ladder by the window above the garage, picking up his equipment to finish for the evening, and almost fell off the ladder - he said he stopped counting at 25 bats flying past his head.

He's a little squeamish, and it took him a while to recover, but he called his father, who is a conservationist; apparently (and I did not know this), it is illegal to "exterminate" bats. It was explained to us that they're clean (note my story on that below), they're good for bugs (mosquitoes be damned), and they do not deteriorate - just sort of turn into dust. I can't verify that, but I'll believe anything once.

So, we're living in peaceful coexistence, until I find one in my house. Then it's another story.

I came home from work one day last week, and normally I go through the garage to go in the house to let the dogs out, but DH was home and had already done that. I walked behind my car, down the driveway to get the mail, and I saw right where the concrete in the garage meets the asphalt of the driveway, a bunch of black spots. I mean a BUNCH. Spots, not piles, mind you. I asked Jim what it was, and he said "Bat poop." I just stared at him. He said "Remember when Ray (the painter) was telling us about the bats - he said they do not poop in their homes." Well this makes little sense because bats live in caves - do they excuse themselves to go out of the cave to release?

Anyway, so far so good for me. If I had a glass of cab every time I heard the creatures scratching in the attic, I'd be eternally pickled! :D

[Beth H]

Luika, I hate to freak you or anyone else out, but I did want to post a reminder that bats can carry rabies. If you do have to handle one -- make sure that you wear heavy gloves. If you're somehow bitten by one, try to capture the bat so that it can be tested. Last year, our cat captured a bat and brought it into the house. Although she was totally up-to-date on her rabies shots, she had to be quarantined and checked out by our health department several times over a three-month period.

[KathrynY]

Susan, thanks for the link to the bat conservation web site. I'm considering a bat house for our yard - does anyone else have a bat house? In the northeast, it seems like we hear more news every summer about mosquito-bourne illnesses (the past two years it's been west nile virus) and I'd like to have a couple of resident OUTDOOR mosquito killers! DH and I sat out on the deck the other night and watched some bats dive-bomb the mosquito population at dusk - it was fascinating.

Don't get me wrong - I definitely don't want them indoors, and so far we haven't had any. Besides, if I provide them with a comfy bat house maybe my house won't look so inviting ;) .

[Zinnia]

:eek:
And, if I was SusanL there is NO WAY I would've been able to sleep w/ one bee anywhere near my house-you are very brave!!
I am terrified of any bee, wasp, or hornet and will scream and run if I see one-won't go back till it's gone.
When we go to Nancy Lake throughout summer every year, we see bats swooping through the air at night to get moths while sitting at the fire. I have never had experiences with bats like everyone else but have been dive-bombed a time or two..
I learned how to make a bat house watching Martha Stewart about 2 years ago (:o , lol). From what I've heard/experienced, they make a big difference and-- are a "good thing".
I recommend to anyone with a bat problem, to make or buy a bat house. Bats need a place to go, and if you have a house for them they won't be in your house. They really do work! Good luck everyone, :) Zinnia

[workinprogress]

Luika, if you're lucky, your bat will be really hungry! I grew up in Michigan, and I remember the mosquitoes. Just think how nice it will be to enjoy a quiet, bite-free sunset! ;)

Seriously, I'm glad you have such a gem of a neighbor, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend with your guests.

Robin

[HDgirl]

I LOL when I saw this topic. When I was a teen I had a bat incident in the house one night. To make a long story short my family thought I was nuts when I told them there was a bat in the house.

Someone told my Dad that during the day they might be under a bed? So he checked everyone's execpt his. Guess where the bat was the next night? We hear my Mom screaming...my Dad comes out of the bedroom and closes the door leaving my Mom in there with the bat! It was pretty funny.

Several years ago SO and I got tattooed....I have a little bat on me now.

[Luika]

Good story. I've got to ask, does HD stand for Harley-Davidson?

I started this thread, and I'm a H-D rider with 25,000 miles on my butt! What a small world, bat stories and bat tattoos.

[HDgirl]

Hi Luika,

That's exactly what it stands for. I don't have that many miles on my butt....yet! I am going for my license because I want to retire my passenger status. I never knew I would like it so much.

Take care and keep the rubber side down.

Karen