Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Going Batshit Crazy

One morning last week I was standing naked in the bathroom, blow-drying my hair and sweating profusely, when ML suddenly appeared and said, with a very sad looking face, “I think there’s a bat in our house.”

At first I was confused because I didn’t understand a) why there was a bat in the house, since neither of us play baseball and b) why ML looked so fucking forlorn about it.

It was only when I saw him walk by again, this time armed with a Mag-lite, did I realize it wasn’t a baseball bat. It was a bat bat. The potentially-rabies-carrying-furry-flying-mouse-of-death kind of bat.

This was unpleasant news, far more unpleasant than the time ML came upstairs to tell me there was a cat in our kitchen.

We don’t own a cat.

A few minutes later, ML ventured back upstairs with an even sadder expression on his face and said, “it’s definitely a bat.”

Click to enlarge if you feel inclined...

“What do we do about this?” I asked calmly. Immediately, ML and I went into planning mode, which was basically us staring at each other blankly and hoping the other would say, “don’t YOU worry about it! I’ll take care of it!!”

When that didn’t happen, we went downstairs and stared blankly at the bat for awhile. My first thought was, “huh, he’s actually kind of cute.”

This opinion did not last long. At all.

Excuse the crappy photo but I was standing on a ladder with my face 12 inches away from a bat. I wasn't interested in aesthetics at the time.

In the end, we did what most people would do when they have a wild animal taking a nap in their house – we Googled how to get it the fuck out. After trolling through various forums/websites/retarded shit and reading horror stories of bats flying into people’s faces or eating babies, we decided to approach it the same way we would a spider – Tupperware and a piece of cardboard. We donned our winter clothes and gloves and other articles of clothing that we hoped would keep the bat from biting us, got a step-ladder and went to work.

True fact #1 – Bats get really pissed off when you poke them with cardboard. And when bats get pissed off, they try to bite you.

True fact #2 – Bats have a shitload of razor sharp teeth and will not hesitate to show you them. Or use them.



True fact #3 – Using a piece of cardboard to scoop a bat into a Tupperware container does not work. All it does is infuriate the little flying creature and make him want to kill you and possibly eat your face.

After our first few failed attempts, we briefly discussed saying fuck it and calling animal control but that idea went out the window when we realized we would have to pay someone to catch it for us. We figured a round of rabies shots would be cheaper.

For the next hour and forty minutes, ML and I sweltered in our winter coats and gloves as we tried various maneuvers to remove our unwanted house guest. Each one failed. Miserably. At one point, after the bat emitted some kind of horrifying alien sound and once again attempted to chew ML’s fingers off while I was dancing around behind him with a sheet in case it decided to take flight (the idea being I would fling the sheet over the bat as it raced towards me, rather than scream like a little fucking girl and run away), ML climbed down from the ladder, looked at me and said in a pitiful voice, “I’m a wuss and I don’t want to do this anymore.”

True fact #4 – I was feeling pretty wussy, too, but made fun of ML anyway.

Our guest wasn't this big. But it kind of felt like it was... Also, I would have just moved out if I found this thing in my house.

 True fact #5 – It is no easier to coax a bat into a pillowcase with a stick than it is to get him into Tupperware with a piece of cardboard. It also pisses the bat off when you poke it with a stick. It will try to bite you.

True fact #6 – If a bat does not want to fly from its hiding spot… it won’t. It doesn’t matter much you beg and plead with it – it will just stare at you challengingly. And the bat will be furious if you try to force it to fly. It will try to bite you.

Eventually, after much cursing and shrieking (cursing from us, shrieking from the fucking bat), I came up with the master plan. The bat was chilling out on our roller blind and I finally realized that if we open the blind, it would force the bat forward and we could ambush it. ML stood on the step ladder once again with Tupperware and cardboard at the ready as I started to open the blind.

True fact #7 – Bats will TOTALLY HULK THE FUCK OUT and suddenly grow to about ten times their original size when it realizes the humans are about to win. It will then start screaming the scary alien sound and try to fly, claw at your eyes, bite the fuck out of you AND shit all over your really expensive blinds all at the same time.

In the end, our perseverance paid off  and the little fucker fell from the blinds and tumbled (rather angrily, judging by the screaming and scrabbling around) into a Tupperware container. There was a brief moment of feeling like a total hardcore badass before ML realized the bat was about to escape its confines and ran to the backyard to release it, where it presumably flew off to get reinforcements and
plan a full scale attack on us.

I'm going to say it wasn't happy about finding itself in a Glad Tupperware container. Perhaps it was partial to Snapware
 
We can only assume that the bat got in through our chimney because the other possibility is way too fucking horrifying to consider – that it (and a host of its unholy minions) are possibly living in our attic.

Neither ML nor I want to stick our head in the crawlspace to find out. The only upside is we’re getting work done our roof soon and the workers are going to have to go into attic.

We’ll let them figure it out for us.

46 comments:

  1. That same exact thing happened to us last summer. It was completely horrifying!! The bastard was in our bedroom and luckily we have french doors between two rooms (don't ask, it's weird and an old house) so we opened a window and closed the french doors. It took a really long time and dh, myself and the kids were watching the stupid bat with a flashlight but it finally flew out the window. I truly thought I was going to have to move it that thing didn't vacate the premises. I kept thinking it was going to be in my closet and the next time I pulled out some item of clothing I would get a very unwelcome surprise.

    We still don't know how it got in but luckily I haven't seen another one. You guys were crazy brave to actually get that close to put it in a tupperware. I wanted no personal contact with that creature. They are smaller than I would have thought but they way they fly around is totally creepy.

    Thanks for reminding me of the terror!

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  2. Interesting how there was NO bat/vampire connection anywhere in your horrifying story there.
    That would have been an easy segue. JJ - I'm a bit dissapointed in you.

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  3. Forgot to mention...HOLY SHITBALLS..is that a REAL bat??? The huge one??? I am SO going to have nightmares about giant bats now.

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  4. That gave me a hell of a laugh. :D Glad it was you and not me. :P

    p.s. I've always suspected you've had bats in your belfry ;)

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  5. Holy hell that post had me laughing so hard. I love your little caption about it not being a snickers bar in your blinds. Do you randomly hide snickers bars around your house?

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  6. OMG how freaking frightening! I love looking at the bats at the zoo, they're so cute (and scary) but having one in my house would freak me the fuck out.

    That Huge Bat????? That's what nightmares are made of...

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  7. A bat fell down the stovepipe in my kitchen a few years ago. My mom freaked the fuck out because it crawled out the top of the stove with it's wings folded so they looked like two HUGE spider legs. We looked after it for a while and tried to release it but it couldn't fly so we put it down.

    I woulda caught it for ya JJ! I ain't scared of no bat... Then again, Ireland is rabies-free. I ain't scared of no Irish bat. Catch your own rabies-infested American bats.

    And I knew fruit bats got big but holy shit!

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  8. All I can say is thank fuck Stephenie Meyer's vamps turn into sparkly sex Gods and not these fugly little winged rodents.

    SEE?!? EVERYTHING comes back to Twilight.

    MC

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  9. @Sabrina Twilight Junkie - I have no clue if that is a real bat. Nor do I want to know because that is a pants-shittingly huge bat.

    @Rikki_D - What? Most people don't hide chocolate bars in their windows?? :P

    @Banshee713 - Oddly enough, I wasn't totally horrified by the bat. Just mildly. I'll leave the house if a bee comes inside but I was relatively okay with dealing with the bat. It was the possibility of rabies that really squicked me out. Poor ML, on the other hand, was apparently NOT ok with the bat.

    You guys don't have rabies in Ireland??

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  10. P.S. - I purposely did not make the jump between bat/vampire just to see how long it would take y'all to jump on that.

    Two seconds, bitches. Give or take a minute or so. I'm impressed. I love you all.

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  11. OMG!!JJ..I'd have had to leave the house till said vampbat was captured. We don't have a cap on our chimney, and I am always freaking out about hearing fluttering up there. GAAA!*shivers* Such beastly looking vermin. Glad you made it out unharmed and didn't have to get rabies shots. I definitely am getting that chim covered...*shivers again* loved your bat story..had me laughing and shivering all in one.

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  12. @JJ: Nope, Ireland, the UK and a couple of other European countries I can't remember are rabies-free. Which is pretty cool cos getting bitten by your neighbour's St Bernard sucks enough without having to get rabies shots too.

    And I probably wouldn't have been so 'awww' about my stove bat if it could've given me rabies.

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  13. FYI: I work in an ER and we give rabies shots for animal bites. Those things are HUGE! Like 4 to 5 full syringes huge! And they HURT! So glad your bat adventures didn't result in an owie followed by many owies....

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  14. A bat got into my sisters apartment once and the dog caught it. Crazy shit those bats!!

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  15. Remember that time when you had all of us list things we feared and couldn't even look at? And I said lotus pods?
    Well, uhm, I could barely read this post because I'm THAT freaked out by flying things/animals/bugs.
    gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah

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  16. Oh gross. I would have hit the bat with a bat. I scream and flail when I see spiders. You're far too brave.

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  17. 2 words.

    FUCK. THAT.

    Who does Renesmee think she is tryin to hang out in your house without her dad?! What a bitch.

    True story, that picture of the "bat with teeth" is not a bat. It's a vampire cat with wings. Not a fan.

    True story, when I was little, we had a bat in our house. It flew in one night when we had the door open for like 5 minutes. I don't remember how it got out, I'm pretty sure I hid under my bed for the next 3 days to make sure it was gone.

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  18. Laughing laughing laughing at the thought of you two trying to deal with the bat. I'm also a tad concerned that I immediately thought of TK's drawing of batty Rennemsmmeeeeeeeeeee when I was reading this post.

    x

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  19. Wait. You mentioned many times "It will try to bite you!" And you obviously went to great lengths to provoke it.

    I can't believe a sheet and winter clothes were enough protection that neither one of you got bit. Did he ever get close enough to bite the clothes/sheet?

    Skeevy!

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  20. WTFINGFORTHELOVEOFALLTHINGSHOLY is that fucking creature in the second to last pic?!? If that exists, I am never leaving the house again. Seems like it lives far away, but also seems like it can fly far and had too much junk going on - GAH!

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  21. LOVE that I can leave comments again. It's been FOREVER. I'm so so so sorry you had to deal with this, but what an AMAZINGLY entertaining blog post we got out of it! You are so fucking funny! I heart you, truly.

    Two points for the humans today.

    My verification word is compses... too close to corpses for my liking. :/

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  22. Holy Tartar Sauce! I couldn't stop laughing at this post!!!!!

    @JJ, truly, I'm not an insensitive person, but I am the bitch that laughs when people slip and fall on ice and that shit was FUNNY!

    I sincerely hope we get a sequel to this once the workmen arrive.

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  23. You have a very interesting life, JJ. I can just picture you in full winter garb with a sheet at the ready to capture the winged spawn of Satan. You & ML are badass to finish that task.

    I love bats for their mosquito destroying talents but wouldn't want them as a house guest.

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  24. Holy Crap I laughed while reading this.

    Do you think Scummit will use that bottom picture of Reneseme in BDII?

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  25. Seriously, I wouldn't have spent all that time trying to catch the little bastard. I would have knocked him on the fucking head with the mag light and been done with it.

    Glad you got rid of him without getting your face chewed off.

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  26. PMSL at the "...TOTALLY HULK THE FUCK OUT..." part - I burst out laughing in the office!

    I totally would've come over and caught it for you - I think bats are freaking cool and much to my hubby's chargrin - have hung multiple bat houses around our house in hopes of luring them in to eat the freaking mosquito population since I live in a swampy area.

    @Sabrina (twilight junkie) @Snarkier Than You @JennyJerkface and et al....yes, that is a real bat in the 2nd to last picture, it's a Pteropus-aka "flying fox" or it's called the Giant Golden Crown fruit bat. Don't worry, they aren't in the US....:)

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  27. Well ladies, I did some work with bats when I was in my early teens. I was climbing up to Bat hidey holes to catch and tag them so we could follow their flight patterns at night.

    The other part of my job was to grab one of the little critters, calm it down and let the people who had congregated around us see/pet/hold said bat. These were Little Brown Bats, and while they do have many sharp teeth, the chances of them actually breaking skin are almost nil.

    Young bats have notoriously faulty echolocation. And if they get lost or disoriented they will just find any quiet place to hang out during the day and try again tomorrow. They have no more chance of carrying rabies than a cat or dog. And while horrifying to find in your home, actually won't harm you.

    So while I am laughing my ass off at your batty adventures, I'm gonna have to side with the bat. You two must have been the scariest mutha fuckin things it had ever seen in it's entire life. I'd be screaming my head off too.

    http://mens-news.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/little-brown-bat.jpg

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  28. @Laxplays & Jaymes805 - I couldn't help but think about Renesmee the whole time we were trying to catch it.

    @BrandiJo1217 - Wherever that thing lives, I'm never going there. The end.

    @Toefunny - We actually did feel really bad for the bat and tried our best not to hurt him. We were hoping we could do it swiftly and with minimal terror (on both sides) but... yeah, didn't work out that way. We were actually afraid if we did call animal control they would come and kill it and we didn't want that. We just wanted him the fuck out of our house.

    I had posted some of those pics on my personal facebook page and got a few comments about how I should have had it tested for rabies. I did a little research and discovered that the percentage of bats with rabies is actually quite small. Good to know.

    Honestly, I'm not sure who I felt sorrier for - ML or the bat. They both seemed terrified of each of other!

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  29. I am officially creeped out now...and am checking every window blind in my house...*shudder*. My brother and his wife had a bat in their bedroom last year. The house is an old victorian, they assume it came in through one of the fireplaces. Animal control took it away, but the health department forced them to get the rabies shots. They said that bats can bite you in your sleep, and the bites are so small that you may not even know it. That simple little statement scared the shit out of me for weeks. Hubs already makes fun of me for sleeping with the covers up to my chin just in case some creepy Nosferatu-looking mofo tries to bite my neck... yeah my vampire would never look like Edward.
    oh..and Rikki D, chocaholics like myself have to hide the goods anywhere we can. we are junkies. Hubs and the kids wouldn't think twice about stealing my last candy bar and eating it right in front of me. i live with jack asses.

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  30. HOLY BALLS!!! Laughing so hard about this one! I sent it to my mom too since she had to deal with bats in the attic when I was a little kid. Here is her reply...

    "Reminds me of when we had the bat colony in our attic in the old house around the corner. Eric & I went up there with hats, baseball catchers masks, tennis rackets, etc after the exterminators came and did the slow release killer spray so most of them would fly out that night and presumably die so we could go up and fill the two #2 pencil size holes where the dormers met the roof to keep them from coming back. There were about 25 of the little suckers still there flying at us! They eventually died within the next 24 hours, but then I had to go up & pick up the dead carcasses. Never again!!"

    So it seems like it a problem more people have than I thought. GOD I LOVE THAT PIC WITH THE ARROW & CAPTION!!! MAH AHAHHAHAHAHAHA!

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  31. I have been crying laughing for 2 days about this post. I had Mr TK read it last night & we talked about how eerily similar our animal wrangling experiences are. This is one of the funniest posts ever. You know, since JJ didn't get bitten & start foaming at the mouth.

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  32. One sunny afternoon I was cleaning my baby daughter's room. She was sitting on the floor looking at books while I was putting them back into baskets. I slid a few out from under her crib when what else slipped out but....A MOTHER EFFIN BAT!

    I screamed bloody murder, which terrified my daughter, then ran out of the room like a bat outta....wait...we got out of there immediately. I called the hubs at work and asked him to come home. He did not. He called an exterminator who, along with my husband, did not believe me that it was a bat. The exterminator came, moved the crib to the side, and when the bat came into the light that thing spread it's wings and got ready to take the eff off.

    The exterminator killed it with a broom. I slept the next three nights with the lights on and baby girl slept in our bed for a good month.

    The next year, I was nursing my son at 3am, in the dark, when a bat flew over my head. Whoosh, whoosh--was what I heard. This time, the hubs killed him in the hallway, with a toilet bowl cleaner, in his underwear.

    That's when we called critter control. They say when you have a bat in the house, it's most likely not a fluke. They're taking up residency.

    Sleep tight, JJ. ;) LOL

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  33. Hi, I thought bats were a protected species, maybe I am thinking of something else. P.S. am in UK

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  34. I feel bad that the bats were harmed but I was hiding in the other room. Please don't report me. ;)
    When they're flying around over your head, it's difficult to think straight.

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  35. OMG I think I peed a little. BAHAHA!!! Bats! Such wily little fuckers, aren't they?! We used to get bats every summer. Unfun, I'll tell you. But eventually, my family and I made it more "The Great Outdoors"-like. No? Dan Akroyd and John Candy? Look into it. HILARIOUS. And so fucking true. It's amazing the shit you'll don in the sweltering heat to make sure you don't get touched by those little rats with wings.

    I'm glad you got that fucker out, I know that feeling. At least it didn't walk on you while you were sleeping or something. *shudder* Now that is awful. Horrible memories. Horrible. I think I was 8 or 9.

    VIVA LA BAT TRAPPERS!!

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  36. OH MY FUCKING GAWD, PMSFL!!!!! you had me , my dh and another laughing so hard we are crying, i HATE bats bees AND spiders, they come in and i go OUT, i would have found me a hotel room and told my dh to call me when its gone!!! LOLOL

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  37. Omg is this post hysterical! Glad you finally got the sucker (ha ha!) out of there.

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  38. Thank you BrandiJo for letting me know that the BFB (big fucking bat) actually exists. I just googled it & they just happens to live in the Philippines. My husband is Filippino & has been trying to get me to visit. No fucking way now!

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  39. Holy Crapoli....my WV was scommet (scummit)

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  40. 1st I wanna say how thrilled I am to see the old comment box, cuz Im a retarded h00r & couldn't figure out the white box thingy.

    2nd I miss the shit outta reading this blog...life is such a bitch sometimes. I'm glad you're all still here.

    3rd I think someone said it already, but JJ you need to have your house bat proofed stat unless you want hundreds of those little Renesmee muther fuckers shitting in your attic/crawlspace for the rest of eternity. Once they move in they are nearly impossible to get rid of. Also, I hope you threw out that tupperware ...cuz, ewwww!

    4th BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! This is fuckin hilarious. It "hulked out" lmfao!!

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  41. giggle giggle gigglegigglegiggle SNORT giggle sniggle GUFFAW!!! ... and thats how it went...

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  42. Okay, maybe I'm the only one, but I love bats. The little browns and big browns in North America eat so many mosquitoes and other insects, we would be in deep trouble if they were not here. Secondly, I handle them all the time. Their teeth are really tiny and just a simple pair of leather gardening gloves is all that is necessary to keep your hands safe. (Not in Texas, however. There are a few biting bats there.) As for rabies, more cows in Michigan last year had rabies than bats. That said, handling any wild animal is a risk. Just one I believe is worth it.

    The lovely Flying Fox (fruit bat) from the Philipines and many other tropical locations eat FRUIT! They are important polinators, and are as soft and cuddly as can be. There is a nice display of them at Disney World's Animal Kingdom, where you can get very close to them. Egyptian Fruit Bats are a little smaller, but just as sweet. Please read Stella Luna some time.

    Honestly, I love every type of animal, including snakes and rats and everything else that is creepy to many people who do not understand them. My nephew calls me "BatKat" because I promote saving the bats of North America and build them houses and stuff. I'm glad you did not hurt the bat and I'm even more glad the scary little 4 oz monster did not hurt you! Keep the funny stuff coming.

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  43. BTW, that picture of the Flying Fox - that is either one very tiny guy, or someone used a lens to make the bat look huge. Kind of like those manipulated pictures of women with huge cats. Either a wide angle lens or a telephoto can do this. They are NOT that big in person.

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  44. Scary bat shit!

    I've heard a lot of 'bats in the house' stories over the years but this is the first that included 'we googled how to get it the fuck out' LOL Definite sign of the times!

    God I hope you find someone to check the crawlspace ASAP!

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  45. Awww I love bats!!! I'll have him. :D x

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  46. Are you sure you don't live in TX? Or AR??? Maybe it was bat that followed you home from Austin.

    I love it. Thanks for the laughs! :)

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