A tale of bats, continued (part 2)

Farm life instills many values in those who live and work on said farms. Hard work, tolerance, patience, and acceptance are qualities that come to mind. And while patience and acceptance are great traits to have, when it comes to leaky old farm houses, these traits can morph into resignation, which isn't always the most fulfilling way of being.

I think about this trait when I think about our farmhouse, because for the seven years we've lived in it, we've had a bat problem. They live in the attic, a storage space so huge that an elderly neighbor once stopped by and told us that when he was a kid, the owners of the home used to have barn dances in the attic. He wanted to see the house, to see if it was like what he remembered, and we told him sure, but the attic is gross, full of bats and birds and their various wastes.

We've wanted to do something about this situation for as long as we've owned the house, but as a young family, and entrepreneurs, and people who like to travel, there's never enough money to do all the things the farm needs doing. So we mostly just deal with the bats and birds by keeping the things we store up their covered with heavy tarps or blankets, and going up to retrieve them only during daylight hours.

The strategy mostly works, and the bats and birds remain up and away, upstairs, claiming their territory while we remain below in ours.

This doesn't always work, however. Recently after pulling a suitcase down from the attic, Sean and I realized a bat had come down the stairs from the attic and was stuck or just hanging out, at the bottom of the attic stairs, right at the door that opens to our second floor, the floor with all the bedrooms.

It was by coming out of this door, slipping under the crack between the door and the floor, that our first bat caused such chaos.

One night as we were preparing to go to bed, we heard chirping and rustling coming from behind the door as we walked up the steps to the bedroom. It was so faint, so nearly imperceptible that I wasn't sure if I was even hearing up. But then our Sphinx cat, who has a prey instinct like I've never seen in an outdoor cat, those lucky creatures who stalk and hunt and exercise their nature, zoomed up the stairs past us and shoved his little snout under the attic door. He poked a slender pink arm under the door, chattered his jaw in the weird way cats do when they are so verklempt they can't meow, and he whipped his tail back and forth, back and forth.

We knew then that a bat had come down the stairs.

But when we pulled the cat away, and in return the bat poked his own black, naked arm out from under the door and did a clawed finger come-hither move, we about lost our shit.

Bats are cool, and they eat bugs and other pests. But there is nothing quite like watching something otherworldly grasp in the air from underneath an attic door in the middle of the night. What I was seeing was very real, but it made me believe in the not real, the fantastic stories of demons and goblins and other things that go "bump" or "chirp" in the night.

Not wanting a repeat of our previous experience, wherein we all had to get multiple rabies shots over the course of a month, Sean and I did what any patient farm people would do. We duct taped the door, rolled a towel up and wedged it against the tape, put one of Sean's guitars on the towel to hold it in place, and went to bed.

The next day, Sean cracked open the door and retrieved the bat, and we talked again about how we really should do something about the attic.