Weird Home Issue…
I had been living in a house that is kind of a fixer-upper. Recently I had discovered some droppings on the outside of the home near my chimney. The exterior of my home is in great shape and looks good, however I soon realized that those droppings were that of a BAT! “A bat!??”, I thought to myself. I didn’t even know bats were in this part of the country nor have I ever even seen one. Anyhow, I looked up and saw a small little tiny open seam where the chimney meets the soffit of the guttering. Sure enough, a bat can very easily fit through just about any space that is like 3/8”. That’s it.
Well, after getting over the confusion that thinking bats were only found in Pennsylvania, I had read that if you observe your house at dusk, you might see bats flying from wherever they have taken up residence.
To my absolute horror, right at dusk, I had observed a bat fly out of from a crack in the chimney. But that wasn’t all. Another one came. Then another. Then another! I thought, ”Oh no! My beautiful home!”. I counted about 30 bats flying out of the chimney. I guess they are living in the portion of my roof where there is no attic, but is right above the front part of my living room above my fireplace.
So right away I’m feeling kind of sick about all of this. It’s like my house has been immediately condemned in my opinion. And I’m sick of always dealing with home issues. It’s one thing right after another.
Well, I called a woman that deals with these kinds of things. She came over and examined my property. Made sure they could not enter into my house. Ok, so here is the solution. Being that it is summer, I had to wait two weeks for her to come out for various “bat” reasons. Something do with laws and “pup” bats that might not be able to fly yet. Whatever. So I guess the solution is to wait until they fly out after dusk, and then seal the hole up where they came from. I believe she is going to install a one-way exit so that they can fly out, but not back in. She said that she can either do that, or catch them all as they fly out. She didn’t quite elaborate on how that could be done. Anyhow, since they are not in the attic, they cannot be reached and the methods described above are the only options. If they were in the attic, then she could just go up there and catch them all. She is that crazy to get close and personal with bats. I have nothing to do with them.
Bad news is, I have to wait 2 weeks knowing that there are about 30 bats crapping and urinating somewhere inside my walls near the chimney and ceiling. Apparantly, 30 bats pack into a tiny little 1 X 1 ft. space and sleep. Kind of like a rack of pool balls. So far I haven’t seen any evidence of crap or urine on my ceiling or walls. So hopefully this goes smooth and my house isn’t ruined. But I guess the bad thing too about bats is that they can find their way back to your house if they have taken up residence there even if they are 100 miles away. And they are very consistent about doing so! So, if you live in an area where there are known to be bats, make sure every nook and cranny of your home is sealed. And of course, with my luck, I don’t see any bats flying from anyone else’s house around the neighborhood. Just mine. I always seem to have problems going on at the moment that no one else has. I’m the only dope standing around outside at dusk observing the outside of my house for bats while everyone else is sitting inside their air conditioned homes watching TV without a care in the world.
