Bats in the Belfry!

Meet our little brown bat friend! Yep, that's right. The Licameli home is hosting a bat colony! How convenient! Last Monday night I was suddenly awaken (and so were the kids) by C.'s screaming downstairs in the basement. As I went running and approached the top of the stairs, I saw C. madly ducking and dodging something erraticly flying circles around the light in the basement. Yep, it was a bat. And as we know, they are blind and fly by radar. Therefore, quick movements near them make them fly very erraticly and out of control like. Which explains why C swinging a large pillow at it didn't help the situation at all - and further, was causing it to hit him in the head while trying to find a way out...talk about an adrenaline rush!

Long story short, after several minutes C was able to capture the damn thing and get it outside. But here's the kicker. They are endangered species and are protected in the State of MD until September 1. Being that I'm not a "bat fan" and I don't care to have them shacking up with us indefinitely, I contacted an exterminator immediately to come assess the situation and find out if we have more where that one came from. Low and behold, we've got an entire colony, including babies. They are living in the attic, getting in on the side of the house where we had no idea that there was an unprotected opening. The way the "bat man" knew this was by the excessive amounts of GUANO (which is toxic and soooo dirty) on the side of our house which indicate a large number of visitors up there. Great.

So for the last few days, I've been sleeping with one eye open waiting for the next "young and stupid bat" to fall out of the attic and take a tour of our residence. Apparently the ones that get into the house made a wrong turn on their way out and don't know any better, according to the bat expert at DNR. We have received special permission from the State of Maryland DNR to have the bats removed since we have seen them in the home and have small babies. Otherwise, we would have had to live with them until the protected period is over, and then have them removed. On Monday next week, which can't come soon enough, we will have a one way door installed at the attic opening so when they fly out for their nightly feed, they will not be able to get back in. After 14 days of the one way door being up, they will go in and disinfect and remove any remaining "renters". Just call our house wildlife central. We had 2 bouts with 6'+ black snakes & a trash eating fox earlier this summer...what next?