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Again.

steuard: (Default)
Thursday, May 20th, 2010 11:27 pm
Kim's mother has been visiting this past week (I'll post pictures of our recent trip later). She has appreciated our house, but we wanted to make sure she got the full experience of living here. So as we all sat calmly chatting in the living room at the end of the day, we were surprised by a visitor:

Yes, we once again had a bat in the house. It flew around our heads in the living room for a while (didn't touch us, happily, and the cats are up on their shots), so I scuttled around the corner and grabbed my tennis racket. After a few minutes of me chasing it around the main floor (mostly without contact) it finally roosted on the wall, at which point I grabbed it with a towel and took it outside.

The surprising thing to me is how much calmer I was about the situation this time: it's almost old hat at this point. (Ok, I was still pretty wired while it was actually flying around our heads, but I calmed down quickly once it was sitting still. Calm enough to take a picture, in fact, though Kim wouldn't let me take time trying to get a better one.) Can't say the same for Kim's mom, though.

Looks like we'll have to get someone out here to find and plug some holes as soon as we're back from next week's trip to Nebraska.
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Ok, this is getting irritating

steuard: (Default)
Sunday, August 16th, 2009 04:58 am
Kim just woke up to the disturbing feeling of a bat (herein labeled Bat #2) brushing past her arm as it circled the room. We turned on a light, but by the time we'd formulated a plan it had disappeared. Had it decided to roost somewhere because of the light? Had it squeezed out of the room the same way it got in? We're still not sure: we were complete cowards when it was actively swooping past us around the room so we didn't watch everywhere it went (especially when it was swooping low to the ground) and a fairly thorough search of likely roosting places turned up nothing.

Once we started searching the rest of the house, Kim spotted a swooping bat by the side door. (I'd already turned on lights throughout the main floor, but it was still dark there.) I managed to thwack it with a tennis racket, leaving it dead or very stunned, and we stuck it in a covered trash can. Occam's razor suggested that we'd found Bat #2, so we started to relax.

But then, Kim happened to see two more bats roosting behind the blinds in our breakfast nook. I've now grabbed those (using the earlier "towel and gloves" procedure) and stuck them in a cooler. (They don't sound happy.) But having found those, we now have no idea whether Bat #2 is still in our bedroom somewhere, waiting for the lights to go out.

Sweet dreams.
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Random question

steuard: (Default)
Friday, August 14th, 2009 04:13 pm
So, just out of random curiosity, how does one safely remove a small bat that's hanging asleep from a curtain rod in one's living room?

No reason.


Update: My curiosity on this topic has abated.

I can happily endorse the "quickly wrap it in a towel" approach (even in awkward spaces), as long as that's coupled with leather gloves and a few other precautions. Apparently, the space between the downspout and the wall outside makes a perfectly adequate substitute for a curtain rod. Meanwhile, our bedroom doors were closed last night, so we're pretty sure he wasn't in there with us. I think we're safe.
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