Our Uninvited Guest

So, I’m not sure if this would classify directly as a renovation post, more of a “living in an old house that we are still unaware of what lurks in her walls” kind of post.  It’s all part of the journey, right? 

This past Monday was fairly normal.  Woke up, went to work, got kids, came home, made Aidan do homework, and then Aidan and his dad headed out to a cub scout meeting (unrelated, they could WALK to it, another great reason we love where we are).  Different than most days, that same evening I had my dad in town for some meetings in Starkville with extension, so he was spending the night.  He was our first house guest so we were forced to stop putting off organizing the guest bedroom and actually put it together.  Can I just take a moment to thank my lucky stars at how glad I am that my dad was at my house when this situation went down??

Little background on my dad, he works for extension, specifically in forestry in South Mississippi, so he is no stranger to working with the outdoors and little critters. THANK GOD. This would have been a sink of swim moment for me if not.  Not sure which option would have happened.

 

Anyway, we’re all sitting in our freshly painted living room, just chatting, waiting for the rice to cook for our read beans and rice, and we hear a scurry from behind the TV.  If you recall, our TV for the time being is placed directly in front of the fireplace. At first I thought it was the cat.  Oh Gumbo….what are you doing back there playing with wires…

But then, I saw something…something small, and dark, and pretty uncoordinated as it bobbled on the floor around the wires.  My brain went in a million directions in that moment.  Is it a mouse?  A rat??  A giant roach??? And then I realized, it’s a BAT!  They aren’t so good at walking on the ground so it just kind of hopped around on it’s belly.  I was thinking that maybe it was hurt since it looked so uncoordinated, but then it got itself out from the wires, got some room, and ZOOM!!  That sucker took OFF!!!.   

This is pretty much what he looked like...

 

They really do like flying in circles, that’s not just for tv.  I began to scream “OH MY GOD!!!  IT’S A BAT!!!” Jude just sat there laughing hysterically with his mouth wide opened, my dad just watched, wheels turning, and the dog, our giant, stupid, hound dog/chocolate lab puppy, Louie, is barking and chasing it like a lunatic (I can’t totally blame him…it was pretty exciting, especially if your genes have bread you to be a hunter). 

This isn’t my first bat encounter.  We caught a bat at the tennis courts many years ago and actually trapped it in a tennis ball can to get a closer look (safely).  But there is just something different about the fact that this bat is in your house, occasionally dive bombing near your head.  What if it flies upstairs and we can’t find it?  What if we get rabies, or worse (maybe better…) he turns into a vampire?! What if MORE of them come out of the fireplace?? These little guys don’t really live alone…I know that much.

But honestly, in that moment I didn’t have time to think about too much of this, it was more “how do we get him OUT”.  “A TOWEL!” I shout, dad nods, yes, get a towel, or a bag, something we can grab him with.  Because we’re in an older home the rooms are pretty segmented and we still have doors between almost all the rooms.  We had the door closed in the living room leading to the stairs. Louie demonstrates below the door leading to the foyer that was closed...

 

And the door from the dining room to the back bedrooms closed, so the only rooms the bat could really fly was the living room and dining room. 

After about 4 minutes of fabulous flight and lots of screams, he was whacked down from the sky to the ground and we caught him.  Dad brought him outside and off he went.  We were all happy to see him go, I venture to say even the bat. End of excitement. I did burn the rice though.

Let's hope we don’t see him again anytime soon.  We have updated our home to-do list and will be looking up someone to come take a look at how to make sure we get rid of any other bats we may have, and how we seal them off from our house.

 

In an effort to try and be prepared for any other little vampire bat visits I came up with the idea of sealing the fireplace at the entrance with a plastic sheet and tape, JUUUUUST in case.  George said I’m paranoid, but he wasn’t there, he doesn’t understand.  Could you imagine 10 more bats coming through the fireplace in the middle of the night and waking up to that??  I’m not taking any chances. Judge away, I don’t care. He’s obviously not a believer in my idea.  These are the only pictures we had from the adventure but George’s face says it all.  

  

Honestly, I do not mind bats.  They are good to have around for the sake of keeping down on insects, and they are pretty cool to look at (outside that is).  I might even invest in a little bat house for them to live in once they are evicted from our fireplace.  I found some pretty cool ones on Etsy, and might even get handy enough to build one. Maybe a family trip to Carlsbad is in the cards, this may have been an omen. Either way, it’s a fun little adventure I’ll be keeping you guys posted on.