Oh bats! [housekeepery]
Jun. 16th, 2022 10:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
When I woke up this morning, there was some noise and confusion in the dining room, which turned out to be two bats, flying around!
I have no idea how they got in. I also don't know how successful I was at getting them back outside. I managed to get one out onto the front porch, but it eventually stopped flying around and found a really good hiding place for itself among the thousands of cardboard boxes piled up. The other one might have similarly found a hiding spot in the front hall closet.
I don't know for sure because I was feeling the time crunch of trying to get out the door for rowing practice. I'm not sure how useful it would have been to try tearing the entire house apart to get at the bats. It seemed better to just leave them be, especially because as best I understand it, humans should generally avoid handling bats directly.
Have you ever had bats in your house? What did you do?
I have no idea how they got in. I also don't know how successful I was at getting them back outside. I managed to get one out onto the front porch, but it eventually stopped flying around and found a really good hiding place for itself among the thousands of cardboard boxes piled up. The other one might have similarly found a hiding spot in the front hall closet.
I don't know for sure because I was feeling the time crunch of trying to get out the door for rowing practice. I'm not sure how useful it would have been to try tearing the entire house apart to get at the bats. It seemed better to just leave them be, especially because as best I understand it, humans should generally avoid handling bats directly.
Have you ever had bats in your house? What did you do?
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Date: 2022-06-16 02:29 pm (UTC)I opened windows and they flew out within about 20 minutes. I figured it was like bats in a cave would be able to find the way out of the cave via echolocation, and in both cases they did.... In one case I kept the bedroom light on and figured it would want to find its way out to darkness and in the other case it was in the hallway and I just opened all the hall windows.
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Date: 2022-06-16 04:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-06-16 05:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-06-16 06:07 pm (UTC):^)
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Date: 2022-06-16 02:32 pm (UTC)We did everything with thick leather gloves on and definitely didn't touch the bat.
We also had a bat in a cabin we stayed in last summer. Much less unexpected but still unsettling. We think eventually we got it to fly out the door, but in the dark we were seeing all kinds of strange shadows and couldn't be sure.
If not for rabies, bats in the house would be kind of cute. But they probably don't like it either.
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Date: 2022-06-16 04:21 pm (UTC)Agreed, I would love to have them present, if not for the rabies or the fact it would probably just stress them out.
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Date: 2022-06-16 02:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-06-16 04:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-06-16 03:26 pm (UTC)Had bats in this house twice; the first time was a pair of confused Big Brown Bats (Big only relative to the Little Brown Bat) that flew at my face when I opened the shower curtain. I was able to open the upstairs door to nowhere and shoo them out it without incident.
Second time was a bat roosting in the looped up electrical cord of the vacuum cleaner; I initially thought it was a cat toy and dropped it when it wiggled. It got put outside with precautions but I noticed an hour later that I had a skin break on that hand with no other explanation and the area around the skin break was becoming inflamed. A trip to emergency for rabies shots followed. (There are four, then three boosters at intervals.)
My landlord had a guy in to fix the roof quite promptly.
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Date: 2022-06-16 04:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-06-16 05:47 pm (UTC)While I should never want to suggest not taking rabies precautions, these days, one might also observe that bats have all manner of remarkable diseases.
Being Patient Zero is always best avoided!
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Date: 2022-06-16 05:28 pm (UTC)I can't offer any advice; all of the bats near me stay safely outside.
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Date: 2022-06-16 09:34 pm (UTC)The general procedure was to open all the doors of the house and use a broom to herd the bat out.
Good luck!
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Date: 2022-06-16 09:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-06-17 01:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-06-18 12:57 pm (UTC)The saga continued. The next evening, a bat was doing a few laps of one room then going to the next and doing a few laps. I wonder if the door to outside just leading to darkness made it less visible to little batty but the ability to navigate from room to room vs outside were in stark contrast. Trying to usher them gently outside (my theory was too much excitement would make them fly fast and stick to the most obvious route in panic), they found the library-office, which, tbh, is perfect bat roost, if only they could easily get in and out, where little batty hid behind a row of books on a top shelf of the built-in bookshelf. This bookshelf really should be full of crystal skulls, 17th century manuscript reprints, etc instead of crap tech books. I delicately removed books a few at a time, met with angry chittering (R's word), until there was left just an angry, tired, probably hungry, very tiny lump of bat. Every few books removed was a new burst of invective in bat. We gently slid a box over them and a bit of coroplast or something over that, not without more angry bat noises, took them outside, took off the lid, tilted the box slowly toward level, and they blasted out in the jaunty irregular path bats take. Hope they found lots of tasty bugs that night.
I know human dwellings are terrible for bats, with too confined spaces and no food, but having a bat in the library briefly was super cool. Anyway, there's now some polyurethane foam in the gaps around the bathroom light fixture, my best guess for egress.
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Date: 2022-06-19 01:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-06-18 06:15 pm (UTC)