Plagued by Bats

Battle for a Safe Home

By Charlie Melton

I’m busy inventorying left over Christmas goodies. I lose my count when my wife yells from the bathroom. She knows I don’t like talking to anyone that’s in the bathroom. It’s just gross. She yells anyway and probably propels bathroom germs all over the house. No, it’s not weird. It’s scientific.

“There’s a bird in here!” she yells. Just then it flutters out of the bathroom. It flaps erratically near the ceiling. It’s living proof that talking in the bathroom is dangerous because it’s sick already. It must work like a canary in a mine. It’s more sensitive to bathroom germs. It’s sort of an early warning system for diseases spread by talking.

The bird continues to flap around so I open the door. I and my Grandson man towels and brooms attempting to shoo it out. It’s really fast and erratic. All we accomplish is to look like idiots.

As the plague ridden fowl swoops I notice the wings are devoid of feathers. They look a little leathery. Great, it’s a sick bird with mange. My hair will probably fall out. That is, if I had any hair it would fall out.

Wait, it’s not a bird. It’s a bat!

Bats are supposed to hibernate in the winter. He shouldn’t be out. He must have missed the “hibernate in winter” memo. Maybe he has a pregnant bat wife. She probably woke him. She had a craving for some bat-wurst.

I yell bat and start ducking as it does a fly-by. I pull out my phone and Google bats in winter. I find vague references to winter bats, but volumes on bat induced diseases. They are just little flying Petri dishes with sonar.

Great, now we’ll get Rabies. Wait, we’ll get Ebola. We may even get histoplasmosis.  I don’t know what histoplasmosis is, but it has many syllables. It has to be bad. I get lost in Google trying to figure my life expectancy. I look up and the bat flutters out of the door and into the winter sky. I should feel relieved but I’m not.

Now the search begins. The bat had to come from somewhere. They’re like kids, if you see one there is a whole unseen flock close by. We searched all of the ceilings for a penetration to the attic, but there’s nothing. We checked the basement. The internet said to look for guano. I don’t know what that is but I’m pretty sure I haven’t seen any.

I call exterminators. Are you aware that those folks want money, and lots of it? That’s ridiculous. I’ve got this. I do a little thinking and have the perfect solution.

You know those mouse traps? Not the spring ones that’ll break your finger. I’m talking about the glue ones. They work really well. I’ve put them out and caught several mice, a cat, and a toddler. I and my mini-me go to the farm store to pick some up. Just so you know, they’re not cheaper by the dozen, or by the gross. I buy a mess of glue traps and head to the bat infested house.

Glue traps on the floor won’t catch bats. They have to be higher up. We tinker around and come up with a perfect method. It’s really genius. I may patent it, so don’t tell anyone.

We string glue traps from coat hangers, and then another level of traps from the first ones. The contraptions are hung from the ceiling using a generous amount of duct tape. We get a little carried away and have to shorten the rig to keep from getting stuck to it when walking by. About 9 hanging mobiles per room look pretty good. They’re called bat-mobiles. Catchy, isn’t it. If a bat starts his erratic flybys he’ll get stuck. I’ll put him in a biohazard bag and send him to a certified landfill so he won’t infect anyone else.

The good news is the bat-mobiles work. Bats have completely avoided my house. My taller friends avoid my house as well, but that’s just collateral damage. It’s to be expected.