Triumph. Maybe...

Triumph. Maybe...

Just maybe ... I've screened off the old chimney. (I checked, nobody was down in it.) There is no way they can get from the attic down to the basement.

What's more, I found a point of entry into the attic. There is a vent in the wall of the attic at the peak, just a few feet from the top of that chimney. The nylon screen over it was all torn up with plenty of room for a bat to fly in. So I sealed it off to. Why would anyone put a nylon screen on an attic vent?

This fits so much more with what I thought bats do: come in high.

When I stuck my head in the old chimney I got a strong updraft, so it isn't hard to imagine why they'd find that attractive. Then they just follow that into the house and eventually end up in the duct work...

So maybe, just maybe, this solves it for good.

BTW: SomeBird, hand balancing, had nothing on me. Try perching on rafters, cutting screening, where the penalty for slipping is falling through the ceiling. And it is still about 110. And you're dripping sweat.

OK, maybe it isn't quite as hard as hand balancing. But I was grateful for the old guy yoga lessons anyhow.

Arggh...

Arggh...

I was going through my bed-time preparations last night when a brown visitor flapped into the bath room.

"Hey - It's occupied!"

Actually that's not what I said.

So the dryer vent is not the source.

My pastor (I went over to Burkina Faso to get some chicken shit to enrich my compost pile) suggested I look again at the chimney. I looked all over and under the fireplace chimney and the hot water heater vent and the furnace exhaust.

My house has a new high efficiency furnace the vents out the side wall - but it has a grate over it, as does the hot water heater. And the fireplace has tight edges, and no sign of bat crap.

So I did a slow walk again around the perimeter of the basement with a flashlight.

On the south wall there is an old chimney that used to serve the original furnace. It runs from the basement to the attic. It used to go through the roof, but when they replaced the roof - evidently after they put the new furnace in - they just knocked the top off so it vents into the attic.

This old chimney has a couple of gaps in the basement where a bat could get out - and from there there are a couple of ways it could get into the rest of the house.

So my current theory has the bats somehow getting into the attic, down the old chimney and then into my ire. So I'm waiting for the sun to get off the roof so the heat isn't so intense and I can crawl up into the attic to put a screen over the top of the old chimney. Of course the question is what time to I have to up to make sure the chimney is empty?

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.

Batricide...

Batricide...

I came home late from music practice, picked up my laptop in the kitchen to check email, and a bat flew past my face.

After so many nights of dealing with these guys I blew up. I chased it down, swearing all the time, and took it outside and did the deed.

I feel a little guilty, and I still don't know where he / they get in. I'm really tired of sharing my house with bats.

Bats...

Bats...

And I thought I had a bat problem.

Non-invasive flying species...

Non-invasive flying species...

In the midst of all the bat news I forgot to mention the robin that pitched her tent outside my back door.

Today she started the food delivery service so I knew they were hatched. I grabbed the camera, which made mamma nervous; she spent a good 5 minutes watching me before she approached the nest, and then had nothing to feed. I left after snapping this picture because I had to be somewhere, and I figured the little guys need an uninterrupted food supply.

Am I light enough yet?

In other news, the bat was back the other night. All my theories have been dis-proven and I'm one step closer to batricide. I'm sleeping with my upstairs rooms' doors closed and towels stuffed under them. If it gets into my bedroom now I'm pretty sure it is being teleported from another dimension.

Busy afternoon...

Busy afternoon...

I think I mentioned some months ago that my friend at irregularreflections wanted to rent space for his second GoldWing in the Garagemahal for the winter. (Do you remember the off-mike chatter on the Dirt Band's 'Circle' record: "It's like Harold Bradley is with his guitars: he can't let them all come home at the same time or his wife'ld divorce him...") I weighed it for a while and came up with a suitable rent proposal: 'Come spring you teach me how to ride and take me on the road with you.'

So a couple weeks back I took the test for a motorcycle learner's permit, got my permit, and we've been waiting for a day when we're both in town. So when the weather cleared off this afternoon, I called him and and away we went.

Its been probably 35 years since I was on a bike, and I never rode a lot even then. But some things are hard to forget. Still, this is a big bike, and the biggest problem is keeping it upright when you're stopped. I didn't spill, or crash into anything, and we had a great time.

In another week or so I could go over to South Bend and take a riding test and get my permanent license. I might borrow a bike and do it, just so I have it. I doubt that I'll ever go out and buy a bike, but, on the other hand, why not?

We got back from the ride late in the afternoon and I looked at the blue sky and figured I'd have time to get at least nine holes in, so I called a friend. He was just about to tee off and waited for me. We got about 5 holes in - and to the farthest reaches of the course when it started raining. There was no lightning and we figured we get wet walking back whether we played or didn't play, so we just kept playing. It was a nice walk.

As I write this I'm sitting at a window with one eye on the vent that I suspect houses the bats. It is dusk. Sometimes at this time of night I see them feeding over my neighborhood. No sign of them yet. I would be cool to catch one red handed, as it were.

Incontrovertible proof...

Incontrovertible proof...

I think I have it figured out.

Which isn't the same thing as 'incontrovertible', but somehow that word has been bouncing around my head this morning and I had to use it.

Yesterday morning I crawled back up in the attic again. And then again. And I got out on the roof and scaled to the top of the dormer to inspect a place where the siding had pulled away from the house. And I looked carefully at the entire soffit, overhang and eves area on the south and east side of my house. It all came back to 'How are they getting in?'

It all kept coming back to this roof vent (for an exhaust vent from the kitchen). It is in exactly the right place below the roof of my closet, and there is no other evidence in the attic or anywhere else of where they could get in.

The thing that threw me was that, although you can't see it from the angle of this picture, this vent has a screen in place to block bird and bat entry.

But when I got up close, I found a screw in the bottom of it and I took as much of it apart as I could. The screen pops right out, and when I looked closely at it I saw little brown hairs stuck to it! I took this photo against the white of the broom so you can see them. There is just a little bit of a gap around either side of the screen, and it is evidently enough that they can squeeze by. And when I reached up into the vent, I could feel a slot where they could bypass the ductwork and squeeze into the rafter. Evidently the space above it is not insulated and they can get in to it.

So I think I have the spot they're getting in. It will be easy enough to exclude once the danger to blocking in any babies that can't fly yet is past. In the meantime I'm closing my closet door at night and nobody has been back for a visit.

Time will tell.

One step closer...

One step closer...

Last night I was in my closet getting ready for bed when I heard what has now become a familiar sound. It is somewhere between a flutter and a wobble, and I thought a bat was in the closet. I looked high and low and behind the shelves; my closet is under the eves so it goes from 8' high to 2' high over about 10'. No bat visible, but the flutter wobble was still there, and I realized it was in the ceiling!.

So the good news is I've found where they live. The bad news is that I know it is a they - there are a bunch of them. And I'm still not sure how they get inside my room. And I'm not 100% sure how they get into rafters. But I have more to work with.

I've been reading on-line and found an excellent post here about one guy's experience removing bats. This lines up with some other things I've read here.

Take home ideas:
The only way to get rid of them is exclusion. You have to seal the entries.
You don't want to seal the entries while they're in the building or they die in the roost.
To avoid this you install one-way valves over the entry so they can get out, but not back in. Leave those in place for a week or so so you're sure everybody is out for good, and then seal it permanently.
Here is the kicker - Don't seal anything between May and August because there may be babies that can't fly that would get stuck in the roost and die.

My plan now is to concede the rafters to them until mid-August and then go through the exclusion process. In the meantime, I'll try to keep them out of my closet and bedroom so I can get a decent nights sleep, and I'll try to find and isolate their entrance to the rafters.

This is beginning to look like a summer's long project!

Golf...

Golf...

Last night I went golfing for the first time in almost two weeks. The last 3 or 4 outings have been Discouraging with a capital D.

Golf is such a mind game. Stop and think about it: the act of hitting the ball takes maybe 4 or 5 seconds for each stroke. So you play nine holes and shoot a 50, you actually spend about 4 minutes playing golf. This on a round that can take about 2 hours. So the rest of the time the game is in your head.

To score well you have to make every stroke count. You don't get many goofs. So when you take a bad shot, it is easy to say 'oh boy, now I'm in trouble. I'm going to end up with an awful score.' And then you go ahead and make your prediction come true.

There are also a lot of contradictions that you have to live with. Like if you hold the club too tightly, you end up with a wooden swing. But if you hold it too loosely, well, it can fly out of your hands. For me one of the biggest contradictions is caring about the score. If I care too much about it, I inevitably blow it. But you have to care a little.

So the key to my turn around last night was decided not to keep score. I decided all I was going to care about was hitting the ball well and having a good time. So I didn't keep score.

I started off pretty much like I had been playing - a couple or three strokes over par, but I really didn't care. I just enjoyed hitting the ball and seeing where it went. Then on the third hole I hit one into the trees on right side of #12 (a long par 5). Since I didn't really care what happened, I picked the riskier shot and, without much of a practice swing, punched it right out into the open where I was aiming. My third shot went right again, and instead of going up to the open fairway on the left went careening for the trees on the right. But it was a well hit ball and it looked like it might have cleared them. I walked forward, not really expecting to find it because I thought I probably lost it in the woods or the tall grass on the far right. When I got out of the woods, there was my ball plopped up a little grassy area with a clear view of the green. I hit a nice fourth shot on to the green, and then (let down) three-putted. But that shot over the trees was a turning point. I didn't still didn't care about the score, but I found myself really enjoying the game, and I bogeyed the next three holes, all of them close to par.

As I came down to the last three holes I told my companions that I wanted to par at least one of the three remaining holes. I was on the green in two, and put down my second put for par on #16 (par 4); had a beautiful drive, a long second put and a short drop for par on #17 (par 3); and was on the green in two on #18. I left my fist put short and missed par by about 2 inches on the last hole.

So I'm learning about caring, but not too much!

In other news, I had not one but two winged visitors last night. I don't know if they are the same bat, or different ones. One was in at about 1:30, and the second at about 4. They hadn't disturbed my markers, so I am back to square one in trying to figure out where they're coming in. This is not an accident or coincidence, and I'm really tired of it. Or maybe I should just say I'm tired; I feel really sleep-deprived.

I'm getting good at catching them: I'm using the garbage can technique in which you scoop into the bat's flight, by the time they realize you're an obstacle it is too late.

Eventful morning...

Eventful morning...

I woke up at about 4:30 with what has become an all too familiar flapping and darting. This has gone from mildly amusing to annoying to really annoying. I'm starting to think the squash racquet might be a better solution, although I don't really want to harm this thing. I just don't want it in my house.

Once it was light enough I started looking in earnest for entry points. I found a spot way way up under the eves where the siding is pulled a little away from the soffit, and directly below there is a quarter-sized gap behind the trim header over my closet door. The roof is too steep to safely climb up there to close it up without knowing for sure that it is the problem. To help narrow it down I've set a tell-tale piece of paper in place over the inside gap to see if it gets moved next time I'm visited. I will learn something, and may be able to take corrective action after that.

Then I packed up and biked to the market. Fresh produce is starting to come in and I bought snow peas and broccoli and garlic scapes and asparagus and STRAWBERRIES! This was followed by stops at the post office, the grocery and the hardware store. It is pretty amazing how much I can fit in my panniers.

I'm seeing a lot more bikers out these days. People are pumping up tires instead of $4+ gallon gas. This is fantastic, but if you're a recently revived biker, here are two tips for you: wear a helmet and, most importantly, ride with traffic. This is a pet peeve: I passed a woman yesterday - actually two women - who were riding facing traffic. Actually they were split: both were riding towards me. One was on my side of the road and the other crossed over to join her after I passed. Dumb.

Once I ran all those errands I settled in to set up my hammock. Last year as a house-warming present my kids bought me a hammock, and it has been sitting in a box for too long. Last weekend I bought the posts and today I dug the holes to hang them from. OK, I just ranted on dumb people, so you can guess what happened next...

I needed to go another six inches down for my second post when I hit yet another tree root. I thought "How did this maple put a root down 26" below the surface?" And then I took another cut and wondered "What's that hissing noise?"

Still can't guess? From here I moved very quickly to the house and called the 24 hour emergency number for the gas company. They told me not to smoke near the cut and that somebody would be there shortly. Thirty minutes later we were excavating a much larger access hole. The NIPSCO guy is still here testing the line and finishing the repair.

With any luck I'll still get the post set this afternoon.

High price for a mosquito-free environment...

High price for a mosquito-free environment...

I came up stairs for to prepare for bed and discovered I had a bat in my belfry again. The first time was mildly amusing. I appreciate that my bedroom is beyond a doubt mosquito-free, but being the second time in a week, this is not what I wanted to see.

I removed the screen again, and this time he (a friend chastised me for calling it a her last time, so I decided to be equal-opportunity) found his own way out. I tried directing it by waving the screen around. That was definitely NOT helpful. So I calmed myself down, turned out the light and waited, trying to say encouraging things.

I have to start looking for entry points.

Unexpected house guest...

Unexpected house guest...

Sometime in the middle of the night I awoke because my blinds were flapping in the breeze. I got up and checked them, and opened them a little wider. The weather has been so unstable that I figured a gust of wind had disturbed them. I tumbled back into bed and didn't give it another thought.

Then as I awoke again in the dawn's early light I slowly became aware that I was not alone. Every homeowner in these old neighborhoods probably has at least one story of a bat visitation. I'm no stranger to it myself, having dealt with them at least once each of the two houses I owned on 8th St. I opened a screen and closed my bedroom door. She (or was it he? - I couldn't tell from where I was standing) looped back and forth for a couple minutes. I kept telling her to go lower, but she wasn't listening to me. She also kept getting tangled up in my mobile. I guess bats can't hear nylon line.

Finally she landed, seemingly exhausted, on the floor beside my bed. I pondered my next move, spotted the empty wastepaper basket, grabbed it and upended it over her, slid a New Yorker under the bottom and carefully carried her to the window and let her fly out.

Later as I lay back in bed, contemplating this post, I got to wondering what the experience was like from her perspective. What would she tell her friends and relations? What would she post on her blog? I concluded it would be something like

"Eeee eeee e e eee!!! E ee e eee eeeee, eee ee e eeee e!!! E ee eee eee-eeeee. Eee eeee e eeee? E eeeeeeeeeee ee eeee e..."