Fight or flight: a note from the old house
July 21, 2009
Bet stayed in town last night to finish some things up in the other house. She sent this along this morning:
You may notice a lingering smell of Raid in the house. I had an altercation with a bat last evening (I won).
I was lying in bed reading about 9:30, when this bat flew into the bedroom. Despite my extreme panic, I recalled Orm Murphy telling me he always kept a can of Raid and a tennis racket beside his lazy boy. I ran downstairs, grabbed the Raid (for ants, but it was the first thing I saw), and the adult-size tennis racket hanging at the bottom of the stairs. Hands shaking, I unzipped the cover only to find a mangled racket inside. The other racket was a kid-size (intact).
By this time it was circling the living room, so I sprayed and swatted (not easy to do with a short racket, and I can’t hit anything at the best of times) until it finally slowed down and landed on the window casing. I wacked it until it fell to the floor, gave it a couple of more whumps, ran to get the mangled racket so I could pin it, then turfed it out the door. No blood was shed, and I didn’t break anything.
Needless to say, I didn’t sleep much. I left all the lights on and slept bolt upright with a broom handy. I will sleep at the farm tonight.
the Walnut Diary 
July 21, 2009 at 11:05 am
Great recount of the bat drama. I’ve been there myself and used to wield a badmitton racket or fish landing net to capture the wayward intruder. Over the years, however, my technique has changed to simply isolating the bat to one room if possible, then opening a door and a few windows. The bat wants out, unless of course, you have a lot of mosquitos inside the house. It will only take a few minutes for the bat to find the exit to dine on the bugs outside.