Bonny
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Location: No Place Like Home!
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Post by Bonny on Aug 14, 2017 17:49:24 GMT -5
OK, so we don't really have a belfry but our cabin IS an "A" frame.
Got an e-mail from our PM that our guests this weekend had a bat encounter. The guests left early and because they were repeat customers our PM refunded their money ASAP.
DH met with the Pest Control guy who explained that there's been a Mexican Free-tail bat invasion in the area. He showed DH where they are roosting, entry points, et cetera. We need to put barriers all around the house and apply fungicide to deal with their urine and droppings. Cost is going to be about $1,700 and is 5 days of work. Ouch!
BTW We like bats because of the insect control they do but understand people being freaked out about sharing their vacation with them. The control system allows any bats out but not in again.
Share your funny/weird uninvited critter stories so at least I feel like I'm getting my money's worth.
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Tennesseer
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Post by Tennesseer on Aug 14, 2017 17:52:50 GMT -5
Good for you, Bonnie, not wanting to harm the bats. Sorry it happened to you though.
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Gardening Grandma
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Post by Gardening Grandma on Aug 14, 2017 18:00:05 GMT -5
We did have bats in the belfry -er attic.
Like you we called the pest control guy who said "I don't deal with bats- that is another specialty....". He gave us tbe name of a bat specialist. Apparently a competent bat guy is hard to find....
So the bat guy came out, told us the same thing. The quote was "up to $1000 depending on what I find"
He made two trips out, sealed everything up except for one exit and we waited. Several weeks later he came back and sealed up the remaining exit. Tbe total cost was $200 and we haven't seen a bat (inside) since.
He drove a black truck with tbe bat symbol and "Batman" painted on tne doors
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Gardening Grandma
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Post by Gardening Grandma on Aug 14, 2017 18:25:16 GMT -5
OK, so we don't really have a belfry but our cabin IS an "A" frame.
Got an e-mail from our PM that our guests this weekend had a bat encounter. The guests left early and because they were repeat customers our PM refunded their money ASAP.
DH met with the Pest Control guy who explained that there's been a Mexican Free-tail bat invasion in the area. He showed DH where they are roosting, entry points, et cetera. We need to put barriers all around the house and apply fungicide to deal with their urine and droppings. Cost is going to be about $1,700 and is 5 days of work. Ouch!
BTW We like bats because of the insect control they do but understand people being freaked out about sharing their vacation with them. The control system allows any bats out but not in search.ancestry.com/search/rectype/vital/ssdi/faq.aspx.
Share your funny/weird uninvited critter stories so at least I feel like I'm getting my money's worth. We also like that they eat mosquitoes, but our county has had two cases of bats with rabies. I sure don't want to be bitten or have my dog bitten by one. "Batman" actually made 3 trips in total. The first time he would not do anything because it was mating season. He came back a ciuple of months later to seal up all the exits except the one. And then the final time.
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phil5185
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Post by phil5185 on Aug 14, 2017 18:27:12 GMT -5
Is your cabin in cold-country? Or SoCal? Bats hibernate in the winter - in the North, that will be happening in Oct (when their bug supply dwindles). If the building has open rafters, they hang from them, you can catch them.
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giramomma
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Post by giramomma on Aug 14, 2017 18:31:35 GMT -5
We had a family of raccoons hanging out in my family's chimney for quite a long time when I was growing up...I'd say almost a year....
I used to be up late at night doing homework. I'd hear scratching from the fireplace, and I swore that I saw the reflection of light off their eyes.
Those raccoons were so stubborn they wouldn't even leave after folks tried to smoke them out.
I don't know how much it cost to remove them. But it was an ordeal.
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hoops902
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Post by hoops902 on Aug 14, 2017 18:52:29 GMT -5
Growing up we lived out in the country and there were some old coal mines on the property, home to LOTS of bats (like black out the night sky LOTS). Used to get them in the house, garage, cars, etc all the time. They weren't nearly as bad as the time we somehow ended up with a very large raccoon up in the drop ceiling of our basement in the middle of the night. He ran amok breaking tons of stuff up there. Ended up with a possum in the garage once who found his way into my baseball bag which probably scarred me for life when I reached in, felt it, dropped the bag, and started screaming. Other than that, we've had lots of mice, snakes, raccoons, etc in our treehouses and forts in the forest. Had a badger in our sunroom once after someone left the door open for too long.
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ken a.k.a OMK
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They killed Kenny, the bastards.
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Post by ken a.k.a OMK on Aug 14, 2017 19:11:06 GMT -5
At our last house I'd sit at the end of the driveway at dusk and watch the bats fly down my driveway into my woods. Then turn and go around the house eating the mosquitoes who were after me.
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debthaven
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Post by debthaven on Aug 14, 2017 19:24:57 GMT -5
We've had stone martens under the roof. One night when the kids were young DS2 told me "there's a cat on my windowsill!" On the second floor! I went up and it was a stone marten. It growled and tried hard to attack me (thankfully through the window). I lived with the situation for longer than I should have because I stupidly thought we'd have to redo the roof to get them out, and I couldn't afford to redo the roof.
When I finally called the roofer (many years ago), he put barbed wire in the TINY space they were using to get in. The little bugger(s) promptly pulled out the barbed wire!!! The roofer came back, and cemented the tiny roll of barbed wire. All that spring/summer, I could hear it (or them) on the roof, trying to pull the barbed wire out again. They didn't manage, since it was cemented. They finally gave up.
They're VERY common here. But if you block their access, they just move on. Wish I'd known that earlier, and that I didn't have to redo the roof to get rid of them. They used to freak the hell out of us, especially the kids.
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milee
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Post by milee on Aug 14, 2017 19:29:56 GMT -5
The club I sail out of has several old working power boats that are used to run regattas. Most of us who sail in races also take turns volunteering to run the races. A few of my girlfriends and I took the large club power boat out and were setting up an on-water course for that day's regatta. When we went to anchor the boat to form an end of the race starting line, we discovered a really large (and very unhappy) raccoon had made a home in the anchor line locker. We were about 3-4 miles from the club in open water, so neither we nor the angry raccoon could escape. And we had less than half an hour before dozens of boats would be expecting to start the race.
So we all decided to ignore each other and go about our business. We pulled the anchor line out from another spare, tried not to go below deck, prayed he wasn't rabid and that he'd just stay down there (no way to close or seal it up.) It was a long 6 hours on the water that day, but we all made it back OK.
It's a mostly volunteer run club, so there was no way anybody was going to vote to pay for raccoon removal services. When we got back, after our friends ashore finished laughing, they all helped us chase the raccoon off the boat.
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milee
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Post by milee on Aug 14, 2017 19:37:13 GMT -5
.... Ended up with a possum in the garage once who found his way into my baseball bag which probably scarred me for life when I reached in, felt it, dropped the bag, and started screaming. .... A couple of years ago I picked my son up from a very rustic summer camp in North Carolina and drove home - about 13 hours, so arrived home around 1 AM. I was still too awake to turn in, so figured I'd sort his nasty camp clothes and put a load in the washing machine. When I reached into his large duffel bag, I grabbed a half squished mouse that must have crawled in at camp and then been at the bottom of all the luggage for the ride home... I'm normally very polite about not calling people outside the hours of 9 AM - 9 PM, but I didn't care that it was 2 AM by then, I was calling all my friends who had just picked up their kids from camp. Me: "OMG, sorry to call so late, but for the love of God, don't bring your kids' camp stuff inside your house! If you've brought it inside already, put it outside until tomorrow when you can unpack it... I just found a mouse in ours!!!"
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Tennesseer
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Post by Tennesseer on Aug 14, 2017 19:39:42 GMT -5
Bonny and Gardening Grandma -just be glad you don't live under the Congress Avenue Bridge in Austin. Short version of the evening event:
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Post by empress of self-improvement on Aug 14, 2017 19:51:04 GMT -5
We've had a bat and a bird in our condo and our cats are all so stupid they just looked at them and wandered away. We chased the bat into a basket and got it outside. The bird, we finally chased out the friggin' window. My favorite was one of our downstairs neighbors got a bat in his unit and he was so brave he was running out his house into the street with a laundry basket on his head. DH had to go down and shoo it out with a broom.
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NastyWoman
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Post by NastyWoman on Aug 14, 2017 19:53:26 GMT -5
LOL! And here I thought this was a political thread that snuck in here...
My bat story: 30or so years ago we visited the gardens of "Buitenhuis" the old governor's mansion in Jakarta. The (very high) trees were covered with hanging bats. They were Flying Foxes with a wingspan of 6ft! Every once in a while one would flap its wings but, to my great relief, they did not budge. I don't know if they are still there because I read somewhere that in most of SE Asia they are being hunted to extinction for both food and sport.
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Tennesseer
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Post by Tennesseer on Aug 14, 2017 19:53:35 GMT -5
Critters don't bother me and have had no bothersome pests in the house. When I see a spider, I scoop it up and put it outdoors.
But my neighbor the policeman does. One morning, around 0630, my door bell rang. I was sleeping at the time. I answer my door and it's the neighbor policeman. I see his car is park down the street as he had left for work. I ask him what's wrong. He tells me there is a mouse in his car. I tell him to drive the car back to his home and park it on the driveway and leave the doors open. He does and the mouse problem disappears 15 or so minutes later.
This is the same guy who asked me once to relocate a toad in his backyard. He doesn't like small insects and animals.
This guy has been shot and wounded in the line of duty but scared to death of little critters.
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Tennesseer
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Post by Tennesseer on Aug 14, 2017 19:56:12 GMT -5
Bonny and Gardening Grandma -just be glad you don't live under the Congress Avenue Bridge in Austin. Short version of the evening event: I was very sorry that I missed that when I was in Austin this year. It was raining the few days I was there and the locals said not to bother. Our hotel was just a few blocks away. I was in Austin years ago for work purposes. Had I known this nightly event occurred, I would have been there in a heartbeat.
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dee27
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Post by dee27 on Aug 14, 2017 19:57:52 GMT -5
When we lived in NE, we saw lots of bats (who nested in my neighbor's barn) outside while we were swimming at night. One bat did get into the garage at my first house when I was pregnant with DD, and the ex told me to get rid of it. Instead I waited until he was home to deal with the critter. We had a bigger problem with field mice who would nest in the garage for the winter, and a few mice did enter the house until I called the exterminator. One died in my car on a sticky pad trap.
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Post by empress of self-improvement on Aug 14, 2017 19:58:01 GMT -5
I was very sorry that I missed that when I was in Austin this year. It was raining the few days I was there and the locals said not to bother. Our hotel was just a few blocks away. I was in Austin years ago for work purposes. Had I known this nightly event occurred, I would have been there in a heartbeat. So would I. It sounds just so awesome.
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ken a.k.a OMK
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They killed Kenny, the bastards.
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Post by ken a.k.a OMK on Aug 14, 2017 19:59:33 GMT -5
Bats are good. Mosquitoes are blood sucking insects.
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Post by empress of self-improvement on Aug 14, 2017 20:08:07 GMT -5
Bats are good. Mosquitoes are blood sucking insects. Yes, yes they are. I don't know what it is but those bastard mosquitoes absolutely LOVE my feet. Screw the arms or whatnot but from the knees down it's a skeeter-fest. My neighbor put up a bat house but I haven't been able to see if there are any in it. We've had a couple and I would sit outside and watch them at dusk and sometimes dawn when I get home from work but haven't really paid attention lately.
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TheOtherMe
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Post by TheOtherMe on Aug 14, 2017 20:10:28 GMT -5
My parents and I were staying at my sister's house--on a farm. We had BBQ's that night and had the patio door open a lot.
We got to bed and in the middle of the night, their very old cat is jumping at the walls. Turns out she was chasing a bat. BIL caught it and got it outside and everyone goes back to bed.
Repeat in a couple of hours. So 2 bats must have gotten in that evening.
My sister does not like critters. They now have a 3 seasons room that the bat would have to get in before it could get in the house.
I can handle anything but mice and snakes. I have had two mice since I moved here. Both died in the garage but my BIL had to come remove them.
When I lived in Colorado, every yard I had had garter snakes. At my last house, I would find snakes in my lawn mower. I finally hired the guy who mowed for the HOA to mow my lawn.
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Cookies Galore
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I don't need no instructions to know how to rock
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Post by Cookies Galore on Aug 14, 2017 20:19:52 GMT -5
I love bats! There is a closed nunery across the street from our house where I assume the bats live because we watch them fly around at dusk from our front porch. We did get bats in the attic of the old house my mom rented when I was in high school, but since we never really went into the attic we didn't bother. The coolest experience I have with bats is being on canoe on a lake at dusk. The bats came out to the lake to I guess drink water before feeding and they flew all around us. We just stayed still in the center of the lake and let them fly around us. It was so cool!
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milee
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Post by milee on Aug 14, 2017 20:30:35 GMT -5
.... I can handle anything but mice and snakes. .... When I lived in Colorado, every yard I had had garter snakes. At my last house, I would find snakes in my lawn mower. I finally hired the guy who mowed for the HOA to mow my lawn. I don't mind snakes, but don't particularly want wild ones in the house. We were dog-sitting a friend's dog and the dog scared a black racer snake out of the bushes near our front door. The dog was chasing the snake and the snake was so frightened and disoriented, it shot right past me into the house as I was walking out the front door. I watched it go under the kitchen cabinets and knew where it was, but needed to leave it to get something with a long handle to fish it out. Worried that it would move somewhere else in the house while I wasn't watching and then we'd never find it, I asked my youngest son to watch the snake until I returned. He was only 6 at the time and totally freaked out, but there was nobody else home so I needed his help. He kept an eye on the snake while I got a broom and also some plywood and other barriers. I built a makeshift "tunnel" from where the snake was hiding to the front door in case I couldn't catch it so maybe the tunnel would funnel it outside and went fishing with the broom under the cabinets. The snake was actually OK with riding draped over the end of the broom and we took it outside without much fuss. Whew.
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weltschmerz
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Post by weltschmerz on Aug 14, 2017 20:41:49 GMT -5
I had the crap scared out of by a daddy long leg at work. I was leaned over my desk and it rappelled down about 2" from my face. Startled me half to death. No exterminator called I let it wander off on its merry way. How on earth did it rappel down? Daddy Long Legs don't have spinnerets.
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weltschmerz
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Post by weltschmerz on Aug 14, 2017 20:43:53 GMT -5
OK, so we don't really have a belfry but our cabin IS an "A" frame.
Got an e-mail from our PM that our guests this weekend had a bat encounter. The guests left early and because they were repeat customers our PM refunded their money ASAP.
DH met with the Pest Control guy who explained that there's been a Mexican Free-tail bat invasion in the area. He showed DH where they are roosting, entry points, et cetera. We need to put barriers all around the house and apply fungicide to deal with their urine and droppings. Cost is going to be about $1,700 and is 5 days of work. Ouch!
BTW We like bats because of the insect control they do but understand people being freaked out about sharing their vacation with them. The control system allows any bats out but not in again.
Share your funny/weird uninvited critter stories so at least I feel like I'm getting my money's worth. You should have charged them extra for the privilege of sharing the cabin with bats. Have you thought of building a couple of bat houses to keep them out of the house?
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msventoux
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Post by msventoux on Aug 14, 2017 20:48:01 GMT -5
A few years ago we had some bats that would hang out for a few days on the exterior of our office building. I saw people pointing at the sprinklers on our building and had noticed some little brown things roosting there. I thought they were birds until one day I saw something fall down outside by my window. It was a little brown bat. He climbed back up to the sprinkler are with his buddies. I know nothing about bats and don't know why they were there and why he didn't fly back up to his roost. I just remember thinking as he was scaling the window sill that it was so ugly he was kinda cute, and feeling bad for the poor little guy that he fell out of bed.
We had a mouse get in the oven during holiday meal prep when I was growing up. We couldn't figure out what the faint high pitched squealing sound was until we started smelling something awful and opened the oven and saw the burned little mouse corpse. Not sure how it got in there, but what a terrible way to go.
I was visiting someone out of state and doing some yard work and was startled by a snake that snuck up behind me, I think it was maybe attracted by water from a running hose. I'm not from the desert area and had no experience with snakes and I panicked. I grabbed a shovel and started hitting it until it stopped moving. When it did, I ran into the house for reinforcements. When we came back out the snake was gone. Apparently it was playing possum, but I'm sure it had a hell of a headache.
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weltschmerz
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Post by weltschmerz on Aug 14, 2017 20:54:37 GMT -5
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 14, 2017 21:33:38 GMT -5
We had a squirrel fall down our chimney. We have glass fireplace doors so he wasn't in the house . . . Yet. Of course, it was a Sunday so we tried to figure out what to do. We took all the chairs in the house (8) and constructed a tunnel for him. We covered the outer legs with towels. It was fairly elaborate. We turned off the lights and opened the front door. We were hoping he would go for the light because we had NO idea what t do if he ran into the house. We opened the fireplace doors and started yelling at him. He started running. Fortunately, he followed our plan. It was a crazy plan, but it worked. DH says that describes most of my plans.
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Tiny
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Post by Tiny on Aug 14, 2017 21:36:19 GMT -5
Spiders - the out door kind. Every couple of years there's a lot of them - they build HUGE webs between the branches of my pine tree and my garage (near the sensor light). sometimes one will create a HUGE web where the Garage meets the alley gate. Also, there is an old metal frame for a 'summer room' over my patio (the canvas roof and screens are long gone.) Sometimes a spider will make a web there between the poles. By HUGE I mean a web that's maybe 4 feet by 4 feet with the anchor lines being even longer. The spiders are HUGE too... I think they are a variety of Orb Weaver. All of the webs I've mentioned are at human level AND on a walkway from the back of the house to the garage to the alley. I'll be honest - I don't mind the spiders - the webs they build are beautiful and they eat other bugs. What's not to like? They are like pets you don't have to take care of. So, I know a spider has been building a web across my walkway to the alley between the garage and the pine tree - it's a barrier across the sidewalk. I'm careful to look/watch for the spider and the web. I notice the web was down during the day - and as evening came on I didn't see any anchor lines and I didn't see the spider working on setting up any anchor lines. A couple of hours after dark I head out to the alley with the trash - thinking no need to worry about a web or a spider.... yeah, not so much. I walked into a 4 foot by 4 foot web with a HUGE spider at face level without seeing it --just feeling it and the spider hit my face. I windwill and twist as the web hits me. My blood curdling scream made the dogs in the neighborhood bark... I think my heart almost stopped. A neighbor came out to check on me. Once I became rational again - I was actually worried about the spider... I hoped I didn't kill it. Didn't see the spider again in my yard. She moved over to my neighbors deck and created her web between the top railing of the deck, the house, and the telephone/cable wire coming to the house from the alley (I think there's atleast 7 feet between the top of the deck railing and the telephone wire). My neighbor was horrified and delighted by the spider - they shot video of the spider building the web (took about an hour once the anchor lines were secure) and for the rest of the summer enjoyed reporting on the spider and the webs she built every couple of nights. My 'pet' spider became their 'pet' spider.
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Tennesseer
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Post by Tennesseer on Aug 14, 2017 23:18:36 GMT -5
A few years ago we had some bats that would hang out for a few days on the exterior of our office building. I saw people pointing at the sprinklers on our building and had noticed some little brown things roosting there. I thought they were birds until one day I saw something fall down outside by my window. It was a little brown bat. He climbed back up to the sprinkler are with his buddies. I know nothing about bats and don't know why they were there and why he didn't fly back up to his roost. I just remember thinking as he was scaling the window sill that it was so ugly he was kinda cute, and feeling bad for the poor little guy that he fell out of bed.
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