the bat racket & skillful caulking job I think the word is out among the animal kingdom. Visit my house and you're welcome to stay. We had 3 sleepless nights due to a bat in our house, for which I spent half a day Friday and half the day Saturday tearing the house apart......caulking every crack 1/4" or bigger. 3 tubes of caulk and 2 cans of expandable foam. The bat has not returned. Side note: if you see a tennis racket in someone's home, does it mean they play tennis or swat bats? I believe here in Indiana, it's for swatting bats.
We've had a mole problem for a few years now.....but the mounds are getting quite tall in the front yard....so much so, the building inspector stopped by and asked if I had a permit for excavation. So, this friend of mine, the wii guy, suggested using a spring loaded steel trap, as he had, to rid myself of the varmints. It worked! Joy of joys........I've snapped two little guys in half and have about a dozen more to go.
Then there is our snake friend (or friends?). I saw him the other evening, Saturday night, after a long day of caulking for bats, by our back porch where I like to sit and relax. He slithered into hiding while being chased by the dog. I didn't think too much of it until he showed up again, I think it was the same one, yesterday morning. This time he reared back to strike when I went to pick something off the ground. One of the biggest garter snakes I've seen. So, now I'm thinking.....I'll let you live being the environmentalist I am (forget the mole story for a moment). So I got a broom and tried to chase him west toward the river....instead he went east toward the foundation of our house....then into the foundation of our house. A time or two I had him pushed away with the broom, but I sure was making him angry....as angry as any snake I've ever seen.
I'm done with our town living wildlife adventure......I'm moving out into the country where the critters used to live.
6 comments:
I don't want to be a monday morning quarterback or anything, but if you haven't alrady done so, I think you might want to make a complete circut of the exterior of your house and look for any openings dime sized or larged and close them up to keep out the bats. Hang in there, I used to have bats at our house and had severa battles with them. I think of it every time I see the tennis racquet sitting in the garage. I know that they eat their weight in mosquitos, etc. etc. and are purportedly good to have around, but I hate them. Little flying rats is what they look like to me.
For the love of Pete, call an exterminator!!!! You're creeping me out with your critters.
hey that brought to mind a story about a local school teacher/coach who used a bow and arrow to take down a bat in his home....what a "brain surgeon" he shot through the drywall, insulation, and the vinyl siding!!! Your kids are safe, he retired a couple of years ago!!!
do you ever have a raccoon problem....I think there are more in town that out here in the country!
first....did I spell racquet wrong. How would I know, I only use it to swat bats.
One can of expandable foam for inside the house, one for around the perimeter outside. I think I got all the openings...save one I discovered yesterday.
We checked for bat exterminators in January when our basement was flooded and evidently became a bat cave for a very large flying rodent....there was only one in the phone book and he brought them down with a bow & arrow...that didn't seem so wise.
No raccoons, not for some time. Our neighbor once had one waiting in the front seat of his Lincoln because he left the window down. Thank goodness he didn't leave the keys in the ignition.
I think the exterminator idea is a non-starter. When i tried that back in the day, I found out that most bats are protected species that can be removed, but not killed. That being said, I suppose that whatever happens between you, a tennis racquet and a little flying rat is your business and not the business of the IN DNR. I found that when using a tennis racquet on these things, accuracy is less important than volume of fire. You just need to saturate their airspace with racquet swings until they go down. Have no mercy. Look at it this way, once the bat is dead, you can concentrate your energies on terminating a garter snake with a shovel.
Yes, the tennis racket is the official bat-whacker of northern Indiana! In fact, my brother-in-law in Plymouth has a great story.
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