Bat in the bedroom...........

[Davidm]

......... no, not th Mrs!

Just drifting off to sleep last night when I heard this fluttering sound in the bedroom. A moth I thought, so turned the light on to investigate but couldn't see anything. Light off, back to bed. A few minutes later I heard it again, and felt a slight breeze as something flew past my face. Wife then heard and felt it too, so light on again to investigate.

A small bat, about the size of a sparrow, doing 50mph laps around the bedroom, with the wife hiding under the duvet shrieking at me to do something.

After watching it for a few minutes, it was fascinating, I turned a light on in the landing and the bedroom light off, and after a few mire circuits past my head it shot off out to the landing. So closed the bedroom door and went back to bed.

Of course, all the other internal doors in the house were open, so it could be anywhere, even found it's own way out through an open window, but lots of places to hide in the house.

If I do manage to track it down, what's the best was to capture it without harming it, so that I can let it go outside, maybe after it starts to get dark this evening? We're about to go off for a weeks holiday and I'd rather not leave the poor thing to starve to death.

[Andy Burns]

I'd have thought catching it in a large towel or a sheet, there and then would have been a good idea ...

[Davidm]

Yeah, hindsight's great init ;) The wife's shrieking kinda blocked out straight thinking at the time!

[Lobster]

On 19 Sep 2014, Davidm grunted:

Oh, I like your style!

[Jabba]

Davidm wrote

Borrow a fishing landing net and scoop it up.

[F]

This happened to me a couple of years ago but, luckily, Management was away at the time. I closed the bedroom door, opened both bedroom windows wide and, after much waving of an available pillow, the bat found its way out.

In your situation I would make sure I found the bat and removed it: I would be more worried about coming back to bat sh!t around the house rather than an ex bat.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

I've batted a few down with a pillow, then tossed them out the window.

[Brian Gaff]

Wear gloves. I got scratched by one last year, and the NHS said you need an injection...

The thing is, try to find it, and liberate it at night, otherwise something will probably eat it as it tries to fly home.

The biggest issue with bats in the house is the droppings, they seem to be incontinent most of the time, another reason to wear gloves.

If you google the description you will probably find advice about how to catch it and handle it. Brian

[Brian Gaff]

Notoriously hard to catch as they hear the towel coming.

You really need a very fine net.

Luckily my encounter was as i was shutting an outside door and luck had it that it went in the out direction.

Brian

[Brian Gaff]

There really is no need to be frightened, they are probably more scared of you. Unnerving yes. Brian

[Brian Gaff]

Yes indeed. They are of course protected. I see you can buy bat detectors on Amazon now. Brian

[Tim+]

Yep. Not many folk realise that we have rabies in our native bats.

Tim

[Phil Anthropist]

They can also carry tetanus.

[Chris French]

In message , Davidm writes

We had one in the living room once, as you say, fascinating to watch, amazingly manoeuvrable in flight, it basically just flew round in circles, rather than try to bash it's way out like a bird.

And of course really hard to catch becuase of that as they easily avoid lots of things you might use to try and catch them. Eventually it got a bit tired and then went behind a curtain to hang, after a couple of times, I managed to retrieve it from behind one of them

[Big Les Wade]

But they're still protected to the extent that they have more secure residence rights in a dwelling-house than the house's owner.

Disturb a common pipistrelle bat while you're trying to repair a leaking roof and you might have the polis round after you. It happened to me and it could happen to you.

[Tim+]

Um, not sure that's true. You may develop tetanus after an animal bite but only because it breaks the skin and allows a route for common tetanus spores to get in.

Tim

[Ian Jackson]

In message , Big Les Wade writes

I recall that, some time ago, in one of the TV house restoration programmes, the owner of one of the restoration companies jokingly said that he made sure that he NEVER discovered that bats had taken up residence in any building he worked on.

[djc]

I've had a few bats fly into the apertment in Italy where the windows are often open on summer nights. Turn the lights off and leave the windows open seems to work. Except on one occasion?. came back into the room, bat nowhere to be seen or heard. About an hour later, looking in the bathroom mirror, discovered bat clinging to the back of my shirt. Took of shirt and shook it out of the window.

[Malcolm Race]

Back in the late 60s I was in a student hall of residence when a bat let itself in. The corridors were abour 10 ft square in section and two of us with hands raised were able to drive it along the corridor (presumably it thought that the gaps between walls and arms were too small for it to fly through) until we got it into a room with an open window and managed to persuade it to exit by the window.

Malcolm

[Davidm]

Well, there's been no sign of it since it flew out of the bedroom into the landing on Thursday night, and no sign of any poo.

Hopefully it found it's own way out of an open window in another room or else it's hidden up somewhere and will starve to death while we're on hols (hope not), but I certainly ain't leaving food and water out for it!