Joanne Brokaw

freelance writer s columnist

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This Life

A humorous look at life, faith, and everything in between

The Bats Are Back In Town

© 2005 Joanne Brokaw All rights reserved

It’s summer, which means it’s time to pull the tennis racket out of the basement. Not to hit balls, but to hit bats.

Like the swallows making their annual spring return to Capistrano, the bats have returned to the Brokaw household for the summer. We haven’t yet figured out how they’re are coming in, or why they’ve chosen our house to haunt. All we know is that when the calendar says summer, the bats are back in town.

We whack three or four bats every year. A few more elude capture because they float upstairs and immediately disappear (how’s that for a tension builder?). But there’s not much we can do. The people at the health department tell us that because a bat has no bones it can fit through a hole the width of a pencil. The only way to keep them out is to plug up all the holes in your window screens, roof, and walls.

We have a cat. You’d think that would be enough rodent protection. But when we had the Bat Man (that’s really the name of his company!) come out to get rid of the bats, he said there weren’t any living in the attic. He did, however, tell us that we have mice living in the walls. Clearly the cat is useless and plugging every pencil-sized hole in an 80-year-old house is a hopeless undertaking. So we live with bats.

They often appear on Thursday evenings between 10 pm and 11 pm, possibly drawn in by summer reruns of “CSI”. The first visitor this year varied from the routine, however, gliding in silently at about 3:30 in the afternoon during a particularly intense scene in “General Hospital”. Either bats really are blind and can’t tell night from day, or this one had a penchant for tawdry soap operas.

It takes a minute to realize that a bat is in your midst. They swoop in suddenly from out of nowhere, and it isn’t until the movement catches your eye or you feel the breeze on your cheek that you realize a winged rodent in right above your head.

If you see a bat, remain calm! Screaming will only confuse the bat, who responds to high-pitched noises. He’ll think you’re calling him over to introduce himself, which of course is definitely not what you had in mind.

I prefer to immediately put something over my head to muffle the screams and keep the bat from landing in my hair - which has never happened but I hear is a harrowing experience. Grab an afghan, a clothes basket, the dog, whatever’s handy.

Next, flee the room. On your feet, on your hands and knees, trampling over the cat, just use the fastest means of escape. If possible, close the door behind you and lock the bat in the room to keep him confined until he can properly be disposed of.

We’ve heard about humane methods of bat removal (“Open a window and let it go outside,” the rodent-lovers beg) but a solid whack is the only way to be sure the bat doesn’t sneak back in later after everyone’s in bed. Our weapon of choice is the tennis racket. It’s lightweight, portable, and easy to use. Goggles are optional.

Bat whacking takes a lot of courage (a nine-foot wingspan and sharp fangs bearing down on you can be intimidating) but little skill. When the bat is in range, simply pull back the tennis racket and swing. If you can execute a perfect backhand, then you get extra points for form, but even a novice can whack a bat on the first try, and the entire process - from screaming to whacking - usually takes less than five minutes.

When my husband, David, came home from work, I showed him the soap opera-addicted bat my daughter’s boyfriend had whacked and which I’d stored in the freezer as evidence. David rubbed his elbow and sighed. “I guess it’s officially summer.”

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