bat woman

So when I left off the professionals were just about to come and give us their opinion...The professional, or the bat woman as I called her (super nice lady with a Dachshund who Winston immediately took to and Franklin wasn't allowed near), from our company of choice after making a few calls, came out to do an inspection and give us a quote as expected last week. Her verdict after scoping out our bedroom, poking around the crawl space, and then climbing over the roof was that the bats are getting in at the four points where our dormer window meet the roof line- which was exactly what I would have guessed. Her solution was to install four "one-way bat doors," or screens at those points to evict the bats and then seal up the holes once they are out of there. The damage was (or would be) $600 for the "doors" including all installation and service fees, as well as an inspection one week after the installation to ensure the bats are evicted, the sealing up of the four holes, and a warranty on the four points that were sealed (with the option of spending $200 every year for an inspection and to extend the warranty). Not a small chunk of change, but considerably less than we were expecting based on our phone calls and initial googling. We happily (or as happily as possible when shelling out $600 for bats of all things) signed the papers ready to be done with this issue. Unfortunately this is the busy season for such a business (the bats just finished roosting and the babies are finally flying out) so the installation of the doors was going to take up to two weeks.

Monday the happy day came and someone sneakily came by  our house while we were at work and installed the agreed upon doors.

Remember we are in the process of painting the exterior, ignore the chipped paint.

So in theory our little bat problem should be about just about solved! All that is left is for them to let the bat doors do their magic (allow the bats to fly out of the attic at night to feed, but not get back in), come back for a follow up inspection in about a week (to ensure that all of the bats have gotten hungry and left the house), and then seal up the holes. We just have to hope in the meantime that the bats don't like our house so much they find new ways into it (this would require more screens, more $$, and worst of all, more time).

This means that we officially have to move off the pull-out (David is going to be bummed) and back into our bedroom so we can hear if there are any lone bats scratching around up there at night. I am not looking forward to it, but on the upside this drama is almost over with and as of Tuesday we were both done with our four-sessions of shots and vaccinated against rabies so if the worst should happen up there we are safe.

 

She got me good that last time- it definitely hurt the most of the 7 shots.

So there you have it. With any luck this story is essentially over with, and now you know what to expect if you wake up multiple nights with bats in your bedroom... move! Jk, jk it really wasn't all that bad.