There's a Bat in My Potty

That's not a clever euphemism.

My husband came upstairs today and warned, "Don't run downstairs to use the bathroom any time soon. Someone has taken residence there. In the toilet, actually."

My first guess was a snake. Nope.

A bat.
A fat bat.
A fat bat clinging to the inside wall of the toilet, just at the water's edge.

So, uh . . . right. This is an ongoing theme; the potty is just a new twist. I'll explain, but first, a little bat--, er, backstory, presented in a series of posts. The first three installments are posted below; more to come.

Bear with me: I'll get there.

About a Bat, Episode I

We bought our house shortly after my son was born; in fact, he was this tiny, one-month-old package that everyone enjoyed passing around during the closing, his ‘big sister’ keeping her protective, two-year old eye on him at all times. The house we were buying was the original home built in our town, the oldest part having been constructed in the late 1860s. Multiple additions later, it had taken on a somewhat quirky, very charming architectural ethos—an open and bright floor plan with something of a bygone feel. It was simple, with a lot of possibility: a project, but not an overwhelming one. Just about right for our little family.

It also had a great history: it had been owned by the same family since the ‘40s, and several generations had grown up in the house. Though sentimental, I liked the idea that happy family memories had been made there—I’m also quite confident that the previous owners’ children, as executors of the property on behalf of their late father, were pleased that they were selling to a young family: the promise of a new era of memories clearly delighted them.

Their father was a strong Wisconsin farmer, and he kept this house as his ‘house in town’ and, later, his retirement property; his farm, a considerably larger property, was just north of Madison. We learned that he was beloved in the community and that he always had impressive gardens in the expansive backyard—expansive, considering the house is smack in the middle of town, just a block off Main Street. When we entered our house for the first time—as its owners—their family had left for ours a note and a picture of their Dad, the farmer. It was a simple and kind gesture, the handing-off of the baton, that really captures the character of our home. But I digress . . .

As we were unpacking, my husband, Kurt, came up from the basement and announced, with some excitement, that he had been surprised by a bat. He reasoned that the house had been empty for two years, so it wasn’t entirely unreasonable to find a bat in the basement. I was not, however, cheered. So after digging through a few boxes and outfitting himself in heavy gloves, his Carhartt jacket, and a baseball cap—and armed with two large fishing nets—the mighty humane hunter headed downstairs. After much searching, he never again saw that bat and concluded that it must have left the way it came in. After all, there was no evidence that the little guy had taken up permanent residence (and by that I mean there was no guano that we could see). Fair enough.

About a Bat, Episode II

Later that summer, once we were all moved in and reasonably settled, Kurt and I were enjoying the quiet late August evening. The kids were tucked in, sweetly snoozing their new rooms. The baby monitor was quiet save for the occasional, soft sigh. We were enjoying a rare ‘date,’ the kind that parents of young children often have: a shared bottle of wine and a few hours of quiet conversation. Simple. It was a nice evening, but as the sun began to set, we noticed a lot of activity in the sky. Bats . . . and in no small number.

Now, just east of our house—across the back alley and on the neighboring block—the spire of a beautiful old Catholic church, built about the same time as our house, reaches high above the roofline, so we thought perhaps—in this idyllic little house, in an idyllic little town, on an idyllic little summer night—that this impressive population of bats had taken up residence in that idyllic church belfry. But then Kurt heard it: a sound that I could not hear, but that he described as squeaking and chatter. He looked up, then slowly nudged me. There, in the oldest part of the house, where the steep pitch of the roof met the old chimney, a bat squeezed out of a small gap. It seemed to have materialized from the stone itself; the gap was so small, nearly indiscernible. Soon, another. Then another. Hesitantly, we walked over to the chimney, eyes fixed. Methodically, like the deployment of military aircraft, bat after bat squeezed out of the opening, dropped down, and made a long, graceful sweep above our heads, into the sky. They were dancing over our yard, the low trees, our neighbor’s sheds, dipping and maneuvering their way through the evening air. We focused on the chimney. Another. Then another. It was like an idyllic little clown car. Eighty-seven. Eighty-eight. Eighty-nine . . .

My husband and I just looked at each other, and continued to count.

About a Bat, Episode III

That Fall, after we were sure all the bats had left their nest, I steadied the bottom of a very tall ladder as Kurt climbed up and examined the nearly imperceptible gap, filling any potential gaps in the stone with expanding foam. We had spent quite a bit of time researching bats since that evening in August, and while we certainly didn’t mind having a few good bats around, patrolling the evening sky, we weren’t too keen on having them share our indoor living space. See, we couldn’t tell whether the bats had come from the old chimney alone—there were just so many of them—or if they had taken up residence in the old attic, which was no longer in use. So up the ladder went Kurt, battling mild acrophobia, can of expanding foam at the ready.

By this point I had made my imagination crawl with absurd but nonetheless unsettling scenarios of bats flying about the kids’ rooms, hanging from the crib rails, becoming tangled in my daughter’s hair as she slept, getting mixed up in the baskets of stuffed animals. I made myself sick with the thought of guano contaminating onesies and baby blankets. So Kurt, having completed his outdoor assessment, shimmied through the teeny access panel in the ceiling of our son’s closet—and I have to pause here, because the image of a 6’2” man shimmying through a two square foot opening in the ceiling certainly deserves pause—in order to examine the old attic, armed with his can of expanding foam. Problem solved.