I speak from experience when I say this: Getting on the first page of Google using the Active Rain platform for various keyword searches is easier for me than catching a bat which decided to play "catch me if you can" at 2am last week. Oy!
I needed to work late one night last week, I finished up at 1am, went off to dreamyland, only to be awakened by my black lab downstairs who is growling and barking. After a minute of trying to ignore him as I was totally out of it, I knew he probably either saw a raccoon (usually in the winter hanging upside down eating birdseed in my birdfeeder (or is it the bird's birdfeeder)), a deer with a mouth full of my hostas (grr...), or some other outdoor creature...so I stumble down the stairs, hear something overhead, but I'm so tired, it doesn't compute. I turn on outside lights, nothing. I turn on the downstairs lights where my dog is, nothing except for this unhappy canine who is normally very docile.
Not sure what to make of anything, I do the typical "go lay down and go to sleep" (paraphrased for the web), I stumble back up the steps and hear something again. I sensed something wasn't right, so I turn on the hall light, and it's a pretty small hallway with four bedrooms and one door to a hall bath, and I see this thing flying weirdly, and it's one of those moments where your brain can't compute what your eyes are seeing, as it doesn't make any sense that there would be some rather large outdoor creature flying around your upstairs hall at 2am. I turn off the hall light, shut my bedroom door for a minute, and tell my wife: "I think there is a bat flying around our upstairs hall." She responds: "yea right, go to sleep and why did you wake me up." After some more prodding, she replies: "Well...go out there and get rid of it, isn't that what testosterone is for." Now...I've gone from being bone tired, mostly asleep, having a bent dog downstairs, and with my manhood now on the line to rid this creature out of my house, I had to think for a moment and ask: How in the world will I actually do this?.
My firs thought, since I live in the Internet age like everyone else, perhaps I should Google: "How to get a bat out of your house." But there was no such time for this, as the laptop was downstairs and I'm not sure Damien (which is what I decided to name him -- perhaps to make him (or her) less scary) was going to wait around for me to do this.
Suddenly, it dawned on me, my two kids doors were cracked just a hair so I ran out there to shut their doors all the way, but quietly so as to not cause massive panic in the house -- wouldn't that have been fun? Damien dive bombed me (probably out of accident since these things don't seem to fly very straight and it's a short hallway) when I went past, so I decided to go downstairs and get a hat in case Damien decided to roost on my head.
This surreal experience was starting to both irritate and make me nervous on how I am actually going to get this thing out of the house.
I first tried a bucket from the garage to capture it...to no avail.
I then tried to shoosh it with a broom...to no avail.
I then tried to get it to roost on the broom handle placed next to the top of the door casing trim where it would land from trip to trip, to no avail. After he dived bombed me again, I figured perhaps the lights being on in the middle of the night was freaking Damien out, so perhaps if I turned off the lights, he would calm down.
When the lights were off...total silence. I could just imagine those evil bat eyes staring at me through the night with those infra-red capabilities and 3 inch pointy teeth while I'm downstairs with this college degree in my head, 100x bigger than this thing, totally hapless and clueless on what to do next.
So...for no reason at all, I am downstairs at the bottom of the stairs, and I turn on the upstairs hall light and figure I'll watch the freak show from 10 feet away for a minute or so. When the light goes on, Damien freaks again and starts flying wildly...next thing I know...he's swooshing down the staircase and flies right by me (more scary than The Blue Streak coaster at Cedar Point), and starts flying around the foyer...
Geez...I think, OMG...he now has access to the whole main level, and the dog is down here as well...so I think great, can't you just see it: A black lab trying to either hide from or chase a bat...doesn't seem like a fair intellectual or flying fight to me.
But...I just opened the front door when he is flying around the foyer and after a few passes, Damien decided to beat wings and flew right out.
So...the next day...I Google this topic and learned the error of my ways, so I think, this can't happen again, so I really don't need to be prepared.
So...the next night, I am working very late again, about 1am, and the darn dog starts growling and barking again, and my heart starts racing again...I go out and turn on all the lights, etc., but no bat...I never did find out why he was barking the second night.
I've happy to report: I have been bat free for a week.
Any crazy animal stories you care to share?
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