Chaos Chronicles

Yeah. Who decided I was the one who deserved all these bats? 2 last night…1 was never found… SIGH Needless to say, I didn’t sleep in my bedroom last night.. Good thing we have a nice comfy bed in the guestroom.  I fell like I’m in some sort of horror movie.  HELP!!!

Bat herding.  Yes.  Bat herding.  Ben left last night around 7:30 to bring my mom back home and I was out in the hall hanging up clothes to dry.  I went back to the washer for my last arm load and what do I hear, but Paul freaking out behind me telling me there is a bat!  So we haven’t had one flying around in a while, I guess it was time for another. NOT.  Anyway, the bat landed on a beam over Paul’s doorway so he would NOT go to bed.  He was in my room till Ben got home.  Ben shot the bat with Paul’s nerf foam dart gun to make it fly.  I yanked the downstairs slider open and jumped out of the way.  The baby didn’t find the open doorway into the night too appealing though because it would NEVER actually GO outside.  Finally it landed on the window and Ben wacked it with a towel, and it flew away….right into a cabinet door and landed in a bowl that just happend to be sitting just below the door.  Lol.  Before Ben could capture it it flew away again and Ben got it with the towel again.  He knocked it silly this time and it flew right into the front of a bag of chips, then bounced off and landed on the counter top.  It was really funny.  He captured it and let it go outside and it flew away into the night.. cue worlds tiniest violin.

So there is this noise that the “fan” has been making in the hallway (it’s a vaulted ceiling) and it’s like a squeek.. well it turns out it’s a BAT stuck inside the light dish. We thought it was dead..

It’s not. It’s ALIVE. It can’t crawl out. UGH.I saw a shadow being cast on the beams and opened my bedroom door the rest of the way..to see the shadow of the bat climbing up the dish. SIGH.At least there are a lot of holes that have been blocked off… but this bat has been there for DAYS. It never really had to leave to eat because we have so many freaking BUGS its’ rediculous! Anyway, I am wondering how the heck we are going to get it out. SIGH.

For your viewing pleasure.. a video of the live bat right now.

My poor poor kitten died today. She was only 9 weeks old. We think she got electrocuted by a supposedly NON LIVE wire. I found her little body holding onto the wire with one paw. I think she was chewing it. Her tail was a little puffy too

To make matters worse, we have to send her over to be tested for Rabies because we don’t know for sure how she died, and with the influx of bats in the house (6 in 3 days)/

I know she was just a cat and most people think it’s not a HUGE deal, but she was a living breathing BABY. So innocent. Never even had a chance to run free outside. I just bought her tag last week

OH DEAR GOD. As I’m sitting here writing this, Ben was messing with the wires to find out where they went and he jostled the wire enough to knock down a metal pot cover onto the exposed part. I saw the blue flash of light UPSTAIRS from the electricity being charged off from the contact. No one was hurt, but now we know it was live.

It could have been one of my kids! I mean it’s sort of blocked off, but still, if they really wanted to, they might be able to get to the wires.
Ben just put electrical tape over the wires. I guess I can add live frelling wires to the Reasons to Move List.
I guess now, we can assume with almost 100% certainty that my poor baby Cattiebrie was electrocuted. We can bury her now instead of sending her off to be dissected.

So there was another bat in the house last night.  Yes. Again.  2 actually.  One was dead behind the washer, and the other was flying around in the girls room while Leena slept.  Ben brought Phoebe back to her bed (she didn’t want to go to sleep when it was her bedtime), and when he opened the door and turned on the light, he saw a bat flying around in there. we captured it and put it in a container for Animal Control.   I really am having a mental breakdown.

So, after getting rid of the 2 bats from earlier, Paul found another bat upstairs. Dead. No one had touched it. No cats to kill it. Nothing. I’m freaking out over here. Of all the others THIS is the one I’m afraid definately has rabies. It was a smaller bat, so it could have been a baby that fell out and hurt itself and died, but COME ON. Bats don’t just up and die like that. It’s sitting in my refridgerator right now. So freakin’ nasty. The Animal control officer is coming in the AM to pick it up and bring it for testing tomorrow morning, along with the other one she had from me.

It has been decided, that if any of the bats come back with Rabies, we are all (sans Ben) going down to MA until Ben can find us a house or apartment (in maine) to move into. We are also going to talk to Wade about getting someone out here to get rid of the bats.

UAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGH! This is getting totally ridiculous!

We have plenty.

Today we have two on display for you. One is neatly packaged LIVE in a holding cell by gladware and the second is available for sport catching. It is awaiting it’s chase, hanging from the beams of my vaulted ceiling.

Please let me know when it will be convenient to pick up said small brown bats.

Hm.  What is that you say?  Oh A Bat is hanging from the top step in the hallway?  Oh. Isn’t that nice.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!  Ok, now I’m not worried about this bat because we weren’t home, and I know no one has come in contact with it (well except maybe the cats while we were out, but this bat looks fine and is behaving normal), But COME ON!  How many times are we going to have to get a bat out of the house?!

Ok, Lisa, repeat your new Mantra;  We Are Moving Out. We Are Moving Out. OHM.  We Are Moving Out.  There I feel better now.

So the Animal Control Officer called and said the bat tested negative for Rabies.  YAY!  I was really very very worried the kids and I were going to have to get the shots.  What I was afraid of is that the little ones would have a bad reaction to the shot and maybe even die.  I know it sounds nuts, but when you have little kids, you fear for their safety all the time.  They are just so little and helpless!  Ugh so anywya, I feel so much better now that I know we are all fine.. The kitties were let back in and now I have to take them in sometime this week to have their rabies shots.  And on a side (but connected) note, We are looking for a new place to live. Yeah.

I am ready to just cry. So much has been going on and this was just the final straw on my emotional thread.  I am sure I’m probably over reacting, but geez. I just found a bat laying on the floor in our house. Alive. I have no idea where it came from. Either from outside, from inside the walls, or McG brought it in. But the kittens were messing with it, and now I’m worried if it has..well, had rabies. I killed it. I’m hoping they can still do testing on it to see. I think I squished the brain. I just hit it hard.  I called the animal control officer and she came and picked up the bat and told me to quarantine the cats.  So I had to lock the kitties in the mudroom.  They were climbing up the door to try and get back in the house   So sorry kitties.   I have to call the Ped in the morning and tell him about it incase the one of the little ones got bitten and I didn’t know about it.  The ACO said that since I have little ones in the house, the testing would be done quickly.  I’ll post more when I hear.