As Bryon was working outside yesterday along the sides of the house, he happened to look up in the eaves and saw a tiny face peering back at him. Turns out we have a space in our eaves that apparently some bats are using as their own personal “bat house.” Which would explain a rather hilarious episode from a few months ago.
Our master bedroom is upstairs and has a vaulted ceiling with exposed beams. I was reading in bed, and Bryon walked in and got a strange look on his face. I asked him what was wrong, and he said, “there’s a bat over your head.” I looked up to see a bat roosting on the beam about two feet over my head. Many of you know that I am a Park Ranger, and that I have also worked at a cave park during my NPS career where we had many bats who routinely used the cave for hibernating. So it’s not like I am any stranger to bats, or don’t know anything about them. But in that moment, whenI saw this bat, which was about the size of a lemon, I reacted like almost any other woman (or human being) would and gave a shriek. Then the $64,000 question was how to get this roosting bat out of our house, because there was no way, I was going to go to sleep with a bat hanging out over my head. So of course, I did what any sane person would do and Googled it. The suggestion that seemed to make most sense was getting some sort of can, like a coffee can, and carefully placing it over the bat with the opening against the beam. Somehow in our scheming, we decided I would be the one who would trap the bat, and Bryon would do the rest. This part made me terribly nervous, as I hemmed and hawed, and tried to creep on it, being as quiet as possible, but breathing hard, apprehensive that it would start flying at any time. I managed to get the can over it, then Bryon slid a piece of cardboard between the beam and the opening of the can. As he grabbed the can, you could hear the bat flying around, no doubt furious over being trapped. Bryon grabbed the can and sprinted out of the house into the woods and flung the can as far as he could into the woods. At the time, it seemed like a daring feat of man against wildlife, and we had prevailed! Now, today, it seems pretty hilarious as I replay the event back in my mind.
Of course, we had thought it was a one-time incident, and now realizing that we have a little colony hanging out in our eaves, we’ll have to deal with the issue all over again. I’m all for sharing our space with wildlife, but bats in the house is just a little too close for comfort, even for me.
