How to Get Bats Out of Your House
Ten summers ago, when I was living in the former parlor of converted mansion on Division Street in Ann Arbor, a small reddish-brown bat got stuck in my bedroom just around dusk.
As the critter circled the room's ionosphere, hugging the flaking cathedral ceilings and occasionally landing atop my threadbare damask curtains, my housemates and I considered our options from the safety of the hallway outside my room.
The traditional approach, cornering the bat with a sheet, would not work. Our ceilings were at least twenty-four feet high. Settling on the idea of expert help, I popped into the room to grab my phone to ring pest control. But as I entered, the tiny beast rushed toward my hair. I retreated at once and realized that she was after me because I was the only object in the room in motion. She was hungry and was using her little radar system to look for food.
I ran outside to get a handful of pebbles from our lawn, and tossed a few across my bedroom door. To the bat the pebbles looked like a swarm of yummy bugs, so she swooped through my door into our cavernous hallway. I heaved open our double oak door and repeated the process on our front porch. Again she lunged toward what she thought were bugs, and she was free. And so was our house (of her).