We have a furry intruder...

Mike Stafford

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Coastal plain of North Carolina
Just discovered a bat inside the house. I suppose I let him in last night when I went to retrieve the trash cans. I failed to close the door between the house and the garage securely and left the garage door open as well since I was bringing the cans back in. Never saw the little rascal until my wife yelled. Sure enough there he was clinging to the slanted ceiling above the stairs to the second floor.

We closed all the doors to the bedrooms and bathrooms to try and limit the area where he could go. Then we got out the crab nets and went looking for him. Never saw him again. We have been looking behind curtains, furniture, under furniture etc. etc. Expect to see him when I least expect it. First time in almost 60 years that I have had to deal with a bat in the house.

The last time I was a teenager and my mother's devil spawn of a cat had brought a bat into the house after mom let her out for her morning constitutional and dropped it on the kitchen floor as a gift. At first mom thought it was dead but it wasn't. Mom screamed and I was getting ready for school and came running down the stairs. There was the bat feebly flapping its wings on the floor and bleeding from cat bites or claws. I covered it with a Cool Whip bowl. Then mom and I discussed the possibility of it having rabies. We called the vet and he said to bring the cat and the bat preferably dead. I was ready to kill that evil cat but mom said no. (She was the only person that the cat allowed in her world.) The vet said not to damage the bat's brain but it needed to be dead before it arrived in his office. So I slid a plastic bag under the inverted plastic bowl and proceeded to carry the bag out to mom's station wagon where I wrapped the plastic bag around the tailpipe and proceeded to gas the little vampire. Then mom and I donned our heaviest leather gloves and stuffed the cat from hell into its carrier and off to the vet we went.

Turmed out neither the bat nor the cat had rabies. The only people injured during this escapade were the vet and his assistant who helped us put the cat back in its carrier.
 
With any uck the bat will leave on its own volition. ;) Years ago my wife at the time and I were co-owners (with two other couples) of a very rustic cabin in the Jemez mountains of NM. The cabin was built in the late 1800s and it was far from critter-proof. It was up in the high country and not practically accessible in the winter, but every spring when we'd go back up to re-open the cabin the attic would have dozens of bats hanging from the ceiling. Eventually they'd move on within a few days once we started rattling around the cabin, so we'd only see them in the springtime. They stayed out of the living areas and we stayed out of the attic. When they were there, it was easy to got real close to them to check them out. The main thing I remember about them is that they had the cutest little bat faces. :D
 
With any uck the bat will leave on its own volition. ;) Years ago my wife at the time and I were co-owners (with two other couples) of a very rustic cabin in the Jemez mountains of NM. The cabin was built in the late 1800s and it was far from critter-proof. It was up in the high country and not practically accessible in the winter, but every spring when we'd go back up to re-open the cabin the attic would have dozens of bats hanging from the ceiling. Eventually they'd move on within a few days once we started rattling around the cabin, so we'd only see them in the springtime. They stayed out of the living areas and we stayed out of the attic. When they were there, it was easy to got real close to them to check them out. The main thing I remember about them is that they had the cutest little bat faces. :D
I have looked and I cannot find its volition. Come to think of it I don't know what a volition looks like. :confused:
 
Living on a lake shore seems to bring all sorts of wild life to where we live. We have had bats get into the house several times. They hide really well, but start flying whenever the rooms are darkened. I have a sort-of electrified tennis racquet that I got from Harbor Freight that works really well to deal with flying things. Though it doesn't kill things as large as a bat or bird, it puts their nervous system out of commission long enough to pick them up (with gloves) and get them out of the house. This racquet is really intended for use as a fly or bug swatter, and will kill them instantly with the high voltage spark, but just stuns the bats and birds long enough to evict them. It even worked on the two gray squirrels that got into the house.

Charley
 
Living on a lake shore seems to bring all sorts of wild life to where we live. We have had bats get into the house several times. They hide really well, but start flying whenever the rooms are darkened. I have a sort-of electrified tennis racquet that I got from Harbor Freight that works really well to deal with flying things. Though it doesn't kill things as large as a bat or bird, it puts their nervous system out of commission long enough to pick them up (with gloves) and get them out of the house. This racquet is really intended for use as a fly or bug swatter, and will kill them instantly with the high voltage spark, but just stuns the bats and birds long enough to evict them. It even worked on the two gray squirrels that got into the house.

Charley
That's a good device to have. Things like bats and weasels and squirrels and chipmunks etc .... are a bit destructive if not dealt with quickly, but otherwise are harmless. When they get caught indoors they get as scared and frantic as some of the people whose homes they are in, so putting them out safely and gently is the best for all of us.

In a retail hardware store I worked at many years ago we had a weasel. A couple of the staff demanded instant death, but those same people also wondered why we couldn't get rid of the mice in the store (we sold bird seed - ??) They refused to understand that if we kept the weasel we'd lose the mice ....
 
I went down to visit our little “cave” yesterday. It’s a root cellar my wife’s grandpa built around 50 years ago. There is a hole in the back wall that cool air blows out of, and sometimes water flows from. This little guy didn’t find his way back into the deeper part where they normally hang out.
IMG_3140.jpeg

His body isn’t much bigger than my thumb, which makes them hard to see sometimes. I was maybe a foot away in the original pic. Just to give scale of how small and hard to find they can be.
IMG_3139.jpeg
 
When one of the gray squirrels got in I didn't know it, but the cats and dog did. Suddenly they were running together from one end of the house to the other (about 100' through 4 rooms). When this started, I was sitting and reading in my recliner in the living room. At first, I was trying to figure out what they were up to, since usually the cats never did anything together with the dog. On about their third trip together into the living room I realized that something was moving quickly in the opposite direction of them. It was a young gray squirrel and he was going up the curtain of the end window, then back down and past the dog and cats as he went through the dining room, kitchen, and family room to the window curtains at the opposite end of the house. The cats and the dog were running away from him, but passing him roughly half way. This went on until I got out that bug zapper tennis racquet and stunned the squirrel as he passed by me. Then I picked him up with a dish towel and put him out on the porch for him to recover.

It was about an hour later before my dog and cats stopped sneaking around while looking to see if he or others were still in here. Fortunately, my wife wasn't home, or she would have been running with them. "Somebody" had left the fireplace damper open in the family room, and that's how he had gotten in. This may have been the cause of the bats getting in too. I now check to make certain that the dampers in both fireplaces (one in family room and one in living room) are closed often. We rarely use the family room fireplace and have never used the one in the living room, but somehow the damper doors get opened more often than we use the fireplaces. I believe that my 2 yo Great Grand daughter has been the cause of this recently, but don't know who did it years ago.

Charley
 
When one of the gray squirrels got in I didn't know it, but the cats and dog did. Suddenly they were running together from one end of the house to the other (about 100' through 4 rooms). When this started, I was sitting and reading in my recliner in the living room. At first, I was trying to figure out what they were up to, since usually the cats never did anything together with the dog. On about their third trip together into the living room I realized that something was moving quickly in the opposite direction of them. It was a young gray squirrel and he was going up the curtain of the end window, then back down and past the dog and cats as he went through the dining room, kitchen, and family room to the window curtains at the opposite end of the house. The cats and the dog were running away from him, but passing him roughly half way. This went on until I got out that bug zapper tennis racquet and stunned the squirrel as he passed by me. Then I picked him up with a dish towel and put him out on the porch for him to recover.

It was about an hour later before my dog and cats stopped sneaking around while looking to see if he or others were still in here. Fortunately, my wife wasn't home, or she would have been running with them. "Somebody" had left the fireplace damper open in the family room, and that's how he had gotten in. This may have been the cause of the bats getting in too. I now check to make certain that the dampers in both fireplaces (one in family room and one in living room) are closed often. We rarely use the family room fireplace and have never used the one in the living room, but somehow the damper doors get opened more often than we use the fireplaces. I believe that my 2 yo Great Grand daughter has been the cause of this recently, but don't know who did it years ago.

Charley
My aunt and uncle had a cottage at the beach for many years. They usually closed it up Thanksgiving weekend.

Once they failed to close the damper on the fireplace which was in the den which was an addition to the the house. They did close the door from the main house to the den.

A squirrel evidently found his way into the house through the chimney and was not smart enough to find his way out. He proceeded to chew all the muntins out of the windows. He couldn't get out that way but he destroyed all three windows in that room and also damaged the door trying chew a hole under it. They found him dead when they next spent time at the cottage.

I have very little use for tree rats. Growing up I spent a good bit of time shooting squirrels with my .22 for Pop to fry up. He loved squirrels. I would rather eat an old tennis shoe.
 
"I have very little use for tree rats. Growing up I spent a good bit of time shooting squirrels with my .22 for Pop to fry up. He loved squirrels. I would rather eat an old tennis shoe."

Thanks, I feel about the same for tree rats, but never wasted ammo on them, and definitely never ate any. Never tried eating a tennis shoe either. If they stay out of my house I don't care where they go. My biggest intruder here has been Canadian Geese. They are on my lawn eating it almost every day. Sometimes they have all of their relatives over too. The locals know to stay away from my house, which has a driveway that almost circles the house. They have learned that if they stay on the lake side of the driveway that I don't bother them. But the visiting guests go everywhere. I hate it when they leave their markings all over my driveway and sidewalks. So a few years ago I bought a green laser pointer. I don't point it at them, but they don't like the green dot circling them, and will head for the lake quickly. I trained the locals with it this way. Cross the driveway and that green bug will chase you. But I have to get the laser out whenever the relatives come for a picnic. Red lasers don't seem to bother them, but the green is very effective. Squirrels don't like green lasers either, but they don't usually give me problems, unless they get into the house, so I don't usually need to resort to laser treatments for the squirrels.

Charley
 
"I have very little use for tree rats. Growing up I spent a good bit of time shooting squirrels with my .22 for Pop to fry up. He loved squirrels. I would rather eat an old tennis shoe."

Thanks, I feel about the same for tree rats, but never wasted ammo on them, and definitely never ate any. Never tried eating a tennis shoe either. If they stay out of my house I don't care where they go. My biggest intruder here has been Canadian Geese. They are on my lawn eating it almost every day. Sometimes they have all of their relatives over too. The locals know to stay away from my house, which has a driveway that almost circles the house. They have learned that if they stay on the lake side of the driveway that I don't bother them. But the visiting guests go everywhere. I hate it when they leave their markings all over my driveway and sidewalks. So a few years ago I bought a green laser pointer. I don't point it at them, but they don't like the green dot circling them, and will head for the lake quickly. I trained the locals with it this way. Cross the driveway and that green bug will chase you. But I have to get the laser out whenever the relatives come for a picnic. Red lasers don't seem to bother them, but the green is very effective. Squirrels don't like green lasers either, but they don't usually give me problems, unless they get into the house, so I don't usually need to resort to laser treatments for the squirrels.

Charley
Well, the dadgum tree rats around here steal the tomatoes out of my garden as soon as they begin to turn red. We have a split rail cedar fence that goes completely around our backyard and the tree rats will hop along the top rail from post to post until they get next to the deck which abuts our kitchen. We will sit at the table in front of the bay window and eat. The tree rats will sit on the top rail of the deck and eat the tomatoes they have stolen from the garden.

Don't get me started on the Canada geese. They crap on everything. They leave their trail of detritus all over my driveway and on the roof of my shop where they like to sit in the shade of the trees next to the shop. Fortunately when it gets hot the mosquitoes around here will sexually harass the geese so vigorously that the geese will leave. That is about the only time I like mosquitoes.

I would like to find a laser, a maser or a phaser that would zap tree rats into the hereafter. :mad:
 
the Canada geese
once when playing golf with my mens club one of my buddies was teeing off and the fairway was populated by canadian honkers. Someone said "Hey Al be careful ya don't hit one of the geese" to which he replied that his ball would fly over em. Well he hit a line drive and the ball musta been going 100 mph about a foot off the fairway. He hit a big ole goose right in the breast, the goose went down dead as a door nail. After that we started calling him Al the goose killer.
 
Kind of like this?
Do you guys realize how accurate you have to be to hit a pigeon on the fly with a baseball?

That said, this reminds me of something that happened many years ago. One of my friends and I were out shooting my bow in a big open field. We were playing lawn darts with a bow and arrow. The big difference was that the participants were nowhere near the target zone. Anyhow, a hawk flew over and I said watch this and shot at the hawk. Skewered it! It fell to the earth dead as a doornail. I could not have hit that hawk if I tried. I was pretty good with a bow but not that good. I was not happy about killing that hawk but it happened.
 
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The presence of an "n" or lack thereof makes all the difference to the meaning of this story..:p:ROFLMAO:
So true, Ike. :D
Your hawk story reminds me of a time my BIL and I were up in the mountains with his kids. We were playing around with a BB gun (the smallest, weakest BB rifle that Daisy made). He spotted a sparrow of some sort (a generic tweety bird) perched on a stump 40-50 yards away. He was trying to just hit the stump to flush the bird. To account for the weak spring in the BB gun, his point of aim was about 6 feet above the stump. He pulled the trigger and a second or so the tweety bird fell over like a sack of bricks. Direct shot to the center of the bird's breast. My BIL felt terrible, lol.
 
Do you guys realize how accurate you have to be to hit a pigeon on the fly with a baseball?

That said, this reminds me of something that happened many years ago. One of my friends and I were out shooting my bow in a big open field. We were playing lawn darts with a bow and arrow. The big difference was that the participants were nowhere near the target zone. Anyhow, a hawk flew over and I said watch this and shot at the hawk. Skewered it! It fell to the earth dead as a doornail. I could not have hit that hawk if I tried. I was pretty good with a bow but not that good. I was not happy about killing that hawk but it happened.
It's always the craziest attempts that work. Many, many (40+) years ago we were living in a remote area, and my wife and I had the care of her younger, orphaned brother. It was autumn and we were out wandering the hayfields looking for Partridge with the dogs. A flock of Canada honkers (note the "n") flew over ... young Wes yells "GEESE", runs to the house gets the first blunderbuss at hand and promptly proceeds to shoot a Canada goose out of the "V" using an old Lee-Enfield .303 :oops:. We made him clean and cook it. Wes has always maintained it was good shooting -- LOL -- we tell him truth - it was pure luck !!
 
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