Ray Karpis
Footballguy
I was sound asleep in my bedroom at 3 a.m. this morning when something roused me. Not aroused me. Roused me. It was very faint...not loud enough to even fully wake me up at first. I drifted in and out of sleep for several minutes, but I sensed a disturbance in the force. Finally, I came to enough to realize I was hearing a light rustling or fluttering sound in the room. I laid in bed for a minute to get my bearings and try to figure out what I was hearing.
I grabbed my glasses off the nightstand and stood up, but everything was quiet. I crept over to the pullchain on the ceiling fan to turn on the overhead light. Took a second or two for my eyes to adjust. I glanced around quickly, but nothing. Then suddenly, I heard the fluttering, look up and saw it.
A mother####### bat.
The light startled it and it started swooping back and forth across the room. I freaked out and darted around the side of my bed. Embarrassed to say my initial gut reaction was to pull the sheets over my head.
A very vag#na-like response, but man bats are creepy.
I come out from under the covers, and the darn thing is still swooping around the room. I grab my pillow and just start swinging away. I think I yelled some iteration of "mother######" 30 times in the first minute of this incident.
Side note: my wife and kids are out of town right now. I shudder to think what would have happened if my wife had been in the bed with me when this rabid SOB started dive bombing the bed. We would probably have to move.
So I take several wild swings at the bat with my pillow, and somehow actually hit it. The whole scene was like something from a cartoon. I hit it and watched it sail in a direct line right into my closet, hit the back wall of hanging clothes, and just disappear. Our closet is a very small walk-in, with no door (just a curtain that is pulled to the side), and the light was of course off. From the very beginning to this point was less than a minute, so I am still freaked out - hair on my arms standing. Instead of following it into the closet and finishing it off, I do what every hairy-chested man's man would do...I bolt out of the room and close the door behind me. Again... 
God, I wish a video camera had been running in that first minute.
I seriously doubted I killed the thing with a pillow, so I thought I needed something else to get rid of it. I run out to my garage to find something. It is actually stunning how crappy my options were. Tennis racket would be golden, but I don't own one. Butterfly net...no. After digging and trying to think through my plan, I ended up taking the following back to the bedroom with me:
- kid's crab net
- small broom
- trash can lid w/ handle
- lawn sized garbage bag
- Guitar Hero Les Paul guitar
- my daughter's pink softball batting helmet w/ faceguard
As I stood there in the garage, I kept thinking about a bat's face and how freakish they look. Made the hair on my neck standup just thinking about it having to try to get the damn thing out of house.
I go back to the bedroom and crack the door just a little. I had trouble hearing because that batting helmet was so tight on my head. I considered taking it off, but I didn't want the bat swooping and buzzing my face. Think "
." RIP, John Candy.I thought I heard the wings fluttering and flying again, but I'm not positive. In any event, I crept in wielding the broom and the trash can lid. I didn't see it and rustled the curtains and lamp shades with the broom. No movement. I concluded it was either still in the closet or in the bathroom because those were the two darkest places in the room. I ruled out the bathroom by quickly flipping on the light and ducking for cover. I rustled the shower curtain and light fixtures with the broom.
Having it narrowed it down to the closet, it occurred to me it might be a good idea to get the video camera rolling. You never know when hilarity might ensue. So as I approach the closet, I've got video going thinking I might capture the final showdown. I'll post it as soon as I can upload and rotate it.
Anyway, I cautiously approach thinking it's going to dart out at anytime..I prod with the broom, shake the clothes, sweep up toward the ceiling....nothing. I slowly get more brave and inch into the closet - trash can lid on the ready - but still nothing. I finally make it into the closet far enough to pull the string on the light. I expected this to make the thing fly, so I dove for cover. Still nothing. At this point it's 4:15 a.m.
To cut to the chase, I never found the #### thing. Here are the remaining lowlights of the next hour:
- Not being able to find bat and not knowing what else to do, I call my dad. He lives about 5 minutes away, works at night, and I knew he would be just getting home at about 4:30 a.m. He seemed excited about the prospect of bat hunting, so he offered to come over and help look for it.
- It suddenly dawns on me that we'll be in my tiny walk-in closet, rustling through everything on the shelves looking for the corpse of this bat (or trying to flush it out). My wife has several "toys"
which we keep stashed behind stacks of clothes on an upper shelf. The thought of my dad stumbling on his daughter-in-law's stash of vibrators and other novelties :X is suddenly more scary to me than the bat, so I guardedly go in and pull them off the shelf and throw them under the mattress.
- We find a half-inch gap around a vent pipe in the closet that leads to the attic. I suspect this is how he got in our room. I'll be calling a "bat" guy to get up in my attic and see what's going on up there.
- Dad and I basically unload the closet. He repeatedly comments on how much #### we have piled up on the shelves. We never find the bat...never hear it, never see it.
- Finally get back to bed (in my sons' room with the door closed) at 5:30 a.m.
My optimistic conclusion is the bat made its way back into the attic while I was in the garage. I really hope that's the case. Based on what I've read, though, I might be updating this thread in a few days when he makes reappearance. Wife and kids are coming back home today. I'm struggling with whether to tell them or not. I am going to have to explain why our entire closet is spread across the bedroom.
Suggestions? Am I naive to think the bat left?
I grabbed my glasses off the nightstand and stood up, but everything was quiet. I crept over to the pullchain on the ceiling fan to turn on the overhead light. Took a second or two for my eyes to adjust. I glanced around quickly, but nothing. Then suddenly, I heard the fluttering, look up and saw it.
A mother####### bat.
The light startled it and it started swooping back and forth across the room. I freaked out and darted around the side of my bed. Embarrassed to say my initial gut reaction was to pull the sheets over my head.
A very vag#na-like response, but man bats are creepy.I come out from under the covers, and the darn thing is still swooping around the room. I grab my pillow and just start swinging away. I think I yelled some iteration of "mother######" 30 times in the first minute of this incident.
Side note: my wife and kids are out of town right now. I shudder to think what would have happened if my wife had been in the bed with me when this rabid SOB started dive bombing the bed. We would probably have to move.
So I take several wild swings at the bat with my pillow, and somehow actually hit it. The whole scene was like something from a cartoon. I hit it and watched it sail in a direct line right into my closet, hit the back wall of hanging clothes, and just disappear. Our closet is a very small walk-in, with no door (just a curtain that is pulled to the side), and the light was of course off. From the very beginning to this point was less than a minute, so I am still freaked out - hair on my arms standing. Instead of following it into the closet and finishing it off, I do what every hairy-chested man's man would do...I bolt out of the room and close the door behind me. Again...
God, I wish a video camera had been running in that first minute.I seriously doubted I killed the thing with a pillow, so I thought I needed something else to get rid of it. I run out to my garage to find something. It is actually stunning how crappy my options were. Tennis racket would be golden, but I don't own one. Butterfly net...no. After digging and trying to think through my plan, I ended up taking the following back to the bedroom with me:
- kid's crab net
- small broom
- trash can lid w/ handle
- lawn sized garbage bag
- Guitar Hero Les Paul guitar
- my daughter's pink softball batting helmet w/ faceguard
As I stood there in the garage, I kept thinking about a bat's face and how freakish they look. Made the hair on my neck standup just thinking about it having to try to get the damn thing out of house.
I go back to the bedroom and crack the door just a little. I had trouble hearing because that batting helmet was so tight on my head. I considered taking it off, but I didn't want the bat swooping and buzzing my face. Think "
." RIP, John Candy.I thought I heard the wings fluttering and flying again, but I'm not positive. In any event, I crept in wielding the broom and the trash can lid. I didn't see it and rustled the curtains and lamp shades with the broom. No movement. I concluded it was either still in the closet or in the bathroom because those were the two darkest places in the room. I ruled out the bathroom by quickly flipping on the light and ducking for cover. I rustled the shower curtain and light fixtures with the broom.
Having it narrowed it down to the closet, it occurred to me it might be a good idea to get the video camera rolling. You never know when hilarity might ensue. So as I approach the closet, I've got video going thinking I might capture the final showdown. I'll post it as soon as I can upload and rotate it.
Anyway, I cautiously approach thinking it's going to dart out at anytime..I prod with the broom, shake the clothes, sweep up toward the ceiling....nothing. I slowly get more brave and inch into the closet - trash can lid on the ready - but still nothing. I finally make it into the closet far enough to pull the string on the light. I expected this to make the thing fly, so I dove for cover. Still nothing. At this point it's 4:15 a.m.
To cut to the chase, I never found the #### thing. Here are the remaining lowlights of the next hour:
- Not being able to find bat and not knowing what else to do, I call my dad. He lives about 5 minutes away, works at night, and I knew he would be just getting home at about 4:30 a.m. He seemed excited about the prospect of bat hunting, so he offered to come over and help look for it.
- It suddenly dawns on me that we'll be in my tiny walk-in closet, rustling through everything on the shelves looking for the corpse of this bat (or trying to flush it out). My wife has several "toys"
which we keep stashed behind stacks of clothes on an upper shelf. The thought of my dad stumbling on his daughter-in-law's stash of vibrators and other novelties :X is suddenly more scary to me than the bat, so I guardedly go in and pull them off the shelf and throw them under the mattress.- We find a half-inch gap around a vent pipe in the closet that leads to the attic. I suspect this is how he got in our room. I'll be calling a "bat" guy to get up in my attic and see what's going on up there.
- Dad and I basically unload the closet. He repeatedly comments on how much #### we have piled up on the shelves.
We never find the bat...never hear it, never see it.- Finally get back to bed (in my sons' room with the door closed) at 5:30 a.m.
My optimistic conclusion is the bat made its way back into the attic while I was in the garage. I really hope that's the case. Based on what I've read, though, I might be updating this thread in a few days when he makes reappearance. Wife and kids are coming back home today. I'm struggling with whether to tell them or not. I am going to have to explain why our entire closet is spread across the bedroom.
Suggestions? Am I naive to think the bat left?
Last edited by a moderator:
eta--listen closely for the fluttering again tonight. 
So awesome! We had a bat in our house about a year back, in the living room with large vaulted ceilings. I walk in from bedroom and get dive-bombed and run screaming back to the bedroom like a little girl. Same thoughts you had, "how the F am I going to kill that thing or capture it and get it out of our house?" Wife goes, just open the door, he'll use the sonar to find the door and fly out. Sure enough, found its way outside in a minute, but took many more minutes of ribbing from the wife for screaming like a little girl and running around freaking out!
But it doesn't work that way. If a bat was flying around in your living space, odds are VERY good that it is a juvenile bat who simply got lost trying to get out to go look for food. That's the good news...that it's just lost/confused and that it wants even less to do with you than you want to do with it!
What if you were the bat? It's trying to survive in the world, same as the rest of us. It had no control over being born as a bat. Let it explore the world with what time it has.
