Batwoman's busy week

Once a year it seems that we have a flying visitor invade our house.... but this year we weren't expecting any as following on from the re-mortaring of the entire house in 2005, the filling-in of soffits/eaves etc and man-cave sealing-in projects in 2006 and installation of various insulations and other things like sealed covers over the unused fireplaces etc in 2007, we didnt think that there would be any way bats could get in this year. So I was not happy to see a flying mammal in our bedroom last Saturday night at 11.30pm. I was actually in the bathroom doing the pre-bedtime regimen of make-up removal, contact-lens cleaning, teeth-brushing etc when I heard a buzzing-zapping kind of noise and instantly knew what it was. So I implemented my usual tricks - shutting the bedroom door, opening the bathroom window, turning on bedroom lights and turning off the bathroom lights..... but to no avail. So after about 15 minutes of watching it zoom around the room not going where I was wanting it to go, I went downstairs where Jamie was fiddling about online. He suggested I take the fly-swat to assist me in my corralling (but was not keen to provide further physical assistance - we seem to have an unofficial arrangement where he deals with rodent issues and I do spiders and other things such as bats). After a further 15 min or so, the evil flyer was locked in the bathroom (I had previously rescued our toothbrushes out) and I reached my hand around the door and turned the light on. But it did not seem to want to go out the window. It eventually stopped flying and stuck itself onto the wall way up high by the roof. So I marched downstairs again and implored the husband to come and help me as I was going to have to catch it and I needed some help to balance on a chair (as well as moral support). So off we go, me armed with a plastic container and lid and Jamie with a cap on his head. Eventually I put the plastic container over where the bat was sitting on the wall and manoeuvred it inside with the help of the lid (not easy when the wall is made of bumpy stucco and not flat) where it started hissing and baring it's sharp-looking teeth at me and making a truly nasty noise. At this point Jamie proclaimed that we had a blog-able event happening and vanished downstairs to get the camera. So here are the pictures.....!!! (someone had better comment and appreciate them as I was not having a good time at well after midnight!).
But the saga didnt end there. My suspicion was that it came in where the air-conditioner pipe is in our room so first thing Monday morning I phoned the air-conditioning people and explained to the woman what had happened and asked her to ask the guys whether I could spray 'Great Stuff' in the little gap I could see or whether they had to come and do it. No-one phoned until almost 5pm when we were out and then only a 'someone said you called, I'll call back tomorrow' message. On Tuesday I finally spoke with the guy who came right over and pumped in 1 1/2 tubes of silicon caulk into the hole. Whew, we could now sleep more restfully as Sunday and Monday nights were not exactly restful as I felt I was on edge all night in case another one came in. But I didnt even make it into bed when Jamie (who had just got in) shrieked out 'there's another bat' and then yanked the sheets over his head. By the time I poked my head out the bathroom door, there was no flying mammal to be seen. We looked and looked and flapped the curtains etc all around for almost an hour, but no bat. I was pretty sure Jamie wouldnt make it up and was unlikely to be hallucinating about such a serious matter but it did seem rather odd. The only thing I can think of was that when Andy put the caulk in the hole, maybe there was one sitting there and it crawled up into the airconditioner and flew out when I turned it on on my way into the bathroom. But that didnt solve the mystery of where it went to..... So another restless night passed. By this time it was Wednesday and Maria (who has been staying for a few weeks) and I went out to dinner leaving Jamie and Cooper at home. Around 9.30pm my phone rang in the restaurant "This is the eagles nest, come in Batwoman, we have another sighting of your flying friend". Apparently he saw it downstairs!!! So once we got home Maria stowed herself away in the safety of the apartment above the garage and intrepid Batwoman began yet another search accompanied by the fly-swat. And then I saw it! Swooping around the back staircase and in and out of the breezeway that leads across to the new part (just as well Maria had shut the door!!) and down towards the laundry. So I grabbed some sheets of thick cardboard and taped up a kind of a door at the mid-point of the stairs just outside the kitchen as we don't actually have any door between the laundry in the basement, the kitchen and main living area and the upstairs bedrooms. I thought with my usual light on-off tricks, I could get it to go from wherever it was to the lower breezeway by the garage. But no, it was not going to comply. So we eventually had to go to bed, but we were relatively sure it was down in the basement somewhere. The cardboard bat-door stayed in place several days - we removed part of it each morning to let Maria out and replaced it in the evening. I went to the basement and fixed all the not-working light bulbs and every evening turned them all on and wandered around with a torch (flashlight) trying to work out where it was. Jamie's Mom came to stay a c0uple of nights and I think she was quite bemused about all the lighting and bat-door installing/uninstalling! At one point Scott (builder) dropped in at 10pm to see us for a social visit and I had him down in the basement with the torch looking up in the floor joists at close to midnight but we didnt see anything remotely resembling a bat! So since Wednesday's double sighting, nothing else was located and we were starting to wonder if it had escaped somehow. UNTIL..... last night at 2am I woke up and shook Jamie - "the bat is back and it's here in our room!!". (So much for the fact I used to be such a heavy sleeper!) So I turned on the light and it started swooping around the room and in and out of the 4-posts of the bed and even sticking it's ugly self to the wall behind the silk curtains. I made Jamie keep his eyes above the covers whilst I went downstairs for the fly-swat again (it was perilously close to my hair too many times) and this time, after an anxious 10-15 minutes of being watched/chased by us two sleepy persons, it eventually went into the bathroom . When we got up this morning, it was gone - we assume out the window - but as a precaution I put all the clothes Jamie keeps hanging up on the door (the things that aren't yet dirty enough to go in the washing but worn for a short time so can't go back in the drawers!) and our dressing gowns into the washing machine on a 2 hour hot wash just in case it was nestled in a sleeve or pocket. Thankfully there wasnt any nasty black residue. So we really hope that's the end of the saga. I for one don't want to see another one ever again. (In our minds, the bat situation is worse than it was in the previous years as a couple of weeks ago Bella next-door was bitten by a bat in the night and needs to have a series of 4 rabies shots. So we know they are not just a nuisance freaking us out at night. As far as getting rid of them - they are in the neighbourhood and live up in the trees (and houses) around us so the chances of exterminating them are pretty low. I've been told that at this time of year, the young ones are learning to fly and it is them that tend to get inside houses and that once they get their bearings, they are less likely to be inside the house - apparently why we only see them inside in July/August). Ugggghhhhh.