BAT ATTACK!
Jul. 16th, 2011 07:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
daidoji_giseiOK, it really didn't attack.
Tuesday afternoon I was sitting in my home office minding my own business (which in this case was an L5R story that I absolutely had to get done for this week) when I noticed some noise coming from my sun room. I didn't pay it any attention at first, figuring it was some birds causing a ruckus up on the gutter, or on the roof of the house next door, but it went on longer than I would have expected so I got up and headed into the sun room to investigate. I got half-way across the room when I realized that there was something in the plastic cottage cheese container I use to collect egg shells in for my garden and that something was in fact a bat.
Keeping in mind the lessons learned from my last bat-related crises I rapidly dropped a sytrofoam board over the top of the container and weighed it down with a plant pot. Then I retreated to call Animal Control. This was harder than it should have been because at first all I could find was the mini-phone book which appeared to be lacking city agency phone numbers so I had to do some searching to find a regular sized one that did. (The fact I was trembling slightly and had a racing heartbeat was probably not helping the situation any.)
Finally I called them up and informed the AC person who answered the phone that they needed to come and take a bat away. She cheerfully agreed that this could be done and started getting the relevant information from me.
At some point during this I said something to trigger this exchange:
HER: "But bats are an important part of the natural ecosystem."
ME: "I have nothing against them as a species. I just want them to stay the hell out of my apartment."
HER: "Oh, well, that's certainly understandable."
Looking back I should have said 'genus' or maybe even 'family' (I am ignorant of just how many bat species there are or how they are organized) but under the circumstances I think a little taxonomy slippage is forgivable. And I wasn't lying when I said I had nothing against them: as someone who gets eaten by mosquitoes on a regular basis I am a fan of any creature that eats them. But having a wild animal in your house is rarely a happy thing, and ever since I had to go through the rabies vaccination series bats have make me kind of twitchy.
Eventually the AC officer arrived, and I was immediately impressed with his sang-froid. In my various bat-incidents at the other apartment I had observed that the professionals tend to have a rather laid-back approach to bat-wrangling, but this guy set a new standard by showing up armed with nothing more than a paper towel. He wasn't even wearing heavy gloves.
I showed him to the sun room and pointed out where the bat was. He calmly removed the stuff holding the container closed, reached in, grabbed the bat, wrapped it up in the paper towel and broke its neck. I felt abstractly sorry for the bat, but since I was planning on insisting on having it tested for rabies (if such wasn't already the normal SOP) I had known that this was coming eventually. (After he left it occurred to me to wonder how vegetarians, especially strict vegans, deal with rabies testing.) Then he sat down at my desk and, with the dead bat still in one hand, filled out the relevant paper work, after which he wished me a good night and departed.
The odds are the bat is not rabid, but still I was rattled. This was very bad because I still had that story to write and my ability to concentrate was not what I needed. I had no one that I could talk to about it so I took a bath and then tried to write. Mostly what I did was fritter time away on the internet. I didn't want to sleep because I didn't know how the bat got into my apartment and what if another one showed up while I was asleep? (Did I mention that bats make me twitchy?) Eventually, and long past my bedtime, I laid down in bed with the room's lights still on and managed to get some sleep. It was not a good night.
After I hear back about the rabies test I am planning on calling my landlord, telling him about the bat, and insisting on him getting someone out to bat-proof my apartment. Though I am apparently cursed with some weird karmic attraction for bats I see no reason why I have to make things easy for them.
Tuesday afternoon I was sitting in my home office minding my own business (which in this case was an L5R story that I absolutely had to get done for this week) when I noticed some noise coming from my sun room. I didn't pay it any attention at first, figuring it was some birds causing a ruckus up on the gutter, or on the roof of the house next door, but it went on longer than I would have expected so I got up and headed into the sun room to investigate. I got half-way across the room when I realized that there was something in the plastic cottage cheese container I use to collect egg shells in for my garden and that something was in fact a bat.
Keeping in mind the lessons learned from my last bat-related crises I rapidly dropped a sytrofoam board over the top of the container and weighed it down with a plant pot. Then I retreated to call Animal Control. This was harder than it should have been because at first all I could find was the mini-phone book which appeared to be lacking city agency phone numbers so I had to do some searching to find a regular sized one that did. (The fact I was trembling slightly and had a racing heartbeat was probably not helping the situation any.)
Finally I called them up and informed the AC person who answered the phone that they needed to come and take a bat away. She cheerfully agreed that this could be done and started getting the relevant information from me.
At some point during this I said something to trigger this exchange:
HER: "But bats are an important part of the natural ecosystem."
ME: "I have nothing against them as a species. I just want them to stay the hell out of my apartment."
HER: "Oh, well, that's certainly understandable."
Looking back I should have said 'genus' or maybe even 'family' (I am ignorant of just how many bat species there are or how they are organized) but under the circumstances I think a little taxonomy slippage is forgivable. And I wasn't lying when I said I had nothing against them: as someone who gets eaten by mosquitoes on a regular basis I am a fan of any creature that eats them. But having a wild animal in your house is rarely a happy thing, and ever since I had to go through the rabies vaccination series bats have make me kind of twitchy.
Eventually the AC officer arrived, and I was immediately impressed with his sang-froid. In my various bat-incidents at the other apartment I had observed that the professionals tend to have a rather laid-back approach to bat-wrangling, but this guy set a new standard by showing up armed with nothing more than a paper towel. He wasn't even wearing heavy gloves.
I showed him to the sun room and pointed out where the bat was. He calmly removed the stuff holding the container closed, reached in, grabbed the bat, wrapped it up in the paper towel and broke its neck. I felt abstractly sorry for the bat, but since I was planning on insisting on having it tested for rabies (if such wasn't already the normal SOP) I had known that this was coming eventually. (After he left it occurred to me to wonder how vegetarians, especially strict vegans, deal with rabies testing.) Then he sat down at my desk and, with the dead bat still in one hand, filled out the relevant paper work, after which he wished me a good night and departed.
The odds are the bat is not rabid, but still I was rattled. This was very bad because I still had that story to write and my ability to concentrate was not what I needed. I had no one that I could talk to about it so I took a bath and then tried to write. Mostly what I did was fritter time away on the internet. I didn't want to sleep because I didn't know how the bat got into my apartment and what if another one showed up while I was asleep? (Did I mention that bats make me twitchy?) Eventually, and long past my bedtime, I laid down in bed with the room's lights still on and managed to get some sleep. It was not a good night.
After I hear back about the rabies test I am planning on calling my landlord, telling him about the bat, and insisting on him getting someone out to bat-proof my apartment. Though I am apparently cursed with some weird karmic attraction for bats I see no reason why I have to make things easy for them.
no subject
Date: 2011-07-17 04:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-17 07:59 am (UTC)