Pay dirt...

Pay dirt...

er... bat dirt.

In the excitement over my encounter with the medical community I almost forgot to report that I may have found the source of my bat woes. What follows is way too much information about how I got there.

A couple of weeks ago I had sealed up the door from my kitchen to the basement stairs. I figured if bats were coming in the basement I'd keep them out of the upstairs and I'd narrow down the sources of entry. With the door closed they were still turning up in my main floor so I was pretty sure they were finding a way into the house above the basement.

Then last week a visitor, Bert, pointed out that they might be traveling via the cold air return.

Then Saturday morning one turned up in my bedroom. This is behind a closed door, with a towel under it. I've inspected every square inch around all the windows and door trim. There is no place for a bat to come in.

But wait. There is a heat register, and it is the old style cast iron with large holes in it. Lots of room for a bat. Plus I've had the furnace fan running on low for weeks to keep air circulating out of the basement.

So I'm laying in bed Saturday morning trying to think like a bat. If I was a bat, trapped in a house I think what I'd want is to fly towards the moving air. Moving air would mean outside: freedom.

So Saturday morning I began to look for ways the bat could get into the duct work and into my bedroom.

When I opened the door to the basement I finally saw it: little bat turds. Not a lot of them, but enough accumulated to tell me that somebody had been fluttering around at the top of this stairs for a while - which meant he had to be starting in the basement.

I have a gas-fired clothes dryer in my basement, but I've never hooked it up. Of course there is a vent in the basement wall for it. The vent has a little damper that is supposed to open when the air is blowing out.

Duhhhh!

And not only that - I found a straight shot from the cold air return in the basement to the main floor of the house, so once the bat gave up trying to use the stairs he'd follow the moving air into the living room. From there it would be fairly straight forward to get into the heating ductwork and end up in my bedroom.

So I stuffed a plastic bag into the dryer vent.

I'm still sleeping with my door and heating duct closed. but one of these days I'm going to put my theory to the test and see if I get woken up with the flappa flappa. In the meantime no more guano is collecting on my basement stairs.