<p>We awoke to a bat in our bedroom the night before last at 2:00. We were not able to catch the bat, well we didn’t try very hard. After about 1/2 hour of hiding under the covers, it “disappeared”. If this happens to you I recommend getting out from under the covers and catching the bat because if you don’t your going to have to go thru with rabies shots! We started ours last night. A series of 5 sets of shots over a 1 month period. When we got home from the hospital, a bat was flying around the house. I think we are going to assume that the bat was the same one as in our bedroom. We could not find any other bats in the house. The sheriff’s animal control person came to pick it up deliver it to the state agency that tests for rabies. If it comes back negative we are thinking of discontinuing the shots. The moral of the story is that it is worth getting out of bed to catch the bat.</p>
<p>I think I would finish the shots. Go to the U.S. Center for Disease Control website and read MMWR Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report articles on rabies.</p>
<p>wow. I’ve never seen a real bat in my life. You got one in your room!?</p>
<p>I got rabies shots once before and boy were they awful. The first set was by far the worst, those that followed were more like your typical flu shot. I never even saw or touched a bat, but they found them living in my sister-in-law’s walls where I had just stayed that past week. According to the CDC, you may not be able to feel or see a bat bite.</p>
<p>My daughter had a summer job last year where they were living in an old disused school. After they had been there a while they started finding dead and dying bats and realized bats were living in the ceiling over the room the staff was sleeping in. On the health departments recommendation they all 5 had to have the series of shots. I think it was 6 for them including an initial rabies gamma globulin shot. Thankfully workers comp paid for them as they are expensive.</p>
<p>The current shots are not as bad as the ones they used to have (which I think were given in the stomach) which apparently were very painful. My daughter did get really bad headaches after each one though.</p>
<p>When we get a bat in the house, we turn on an outdoor light near a door preferably in the room the bat is in. Open the door and turn off the lights inside. It will fly out toward the light.</p>
<p>This just put the occasional mosquito/gnat we get in our bedroom into perspective. :eek:</p>
<p>Our neighbors went into their walk-in attic to get their luggage, only to discover bats hanging from the crossbeams. They called the exterminator, who told them that they were “baby bats”, and they could not kill them. They had to wait 3 weeks for the bats to “grow up” and fly out on their own. And then they sealed up the attic space where they flew in. </p>
<p>Honestly, I don’t know how she lived in that house knowing there were bats in the attic. I would not have been able to handle it at all. I would not have cared about the poor little bat environment–I would have gotten a Raid bomb or something like that and killed the little devils.</p>
<p>We had a bat in our old house in Chicago 10 years ago. One night the DD was sleeping on my lap and woke up saying look Mom StellaLuna is here. I said yes dear and patted her on the back as if she were dreaming. Then i looked up and sure enough a bat was hanging from the ceiling molding. I got a broom and tried o dislodge he bat and opened a window to help it fly out. The bat gave out this baby like cry if I touched it with the Broom. Not wanting expensive shrink bills latter for the young DD I stopped batting with the broom and opened more windows. Then our cat decided to go out the window and stalk around in the bushes. I went out in my PJ’s to get the Cat back in and my daughter is howling about the bat inside with her and the possibility of losing the Cat so i grabbed the cat by the scruff of the neck and the cat scratched my hand real bad.
So it is a day before Halloween and I have blood dripping all over my hand, I have a cat in one hand, a broom in the other, a kid screaming, a bat in my house and I am wandering outside in my pajamas. Not wanting to get committed, I put the cat and the bat in a back porch with one very high window opening and closed the door. Cat will either dine on bat or smart bat will leave my house. Next morning bat was gone and cat said nothing.</p>
<p>TheresaCPA–that is a great story!!!</p>
<p>Wow!! This just happened to my family a few days ago! My mum knocked on my door, I opened it and she screamed and ran in; there was a bat in our hallway. We stayed in my room for like 30 mins, and never saw it again</p>
<p>We assume it managed to find the one tiny window that was open, otherwise it’s still in our house…</p>
<p>I am still laughing at the many images that popped into my head when I read the thread title!! LOL!!</p>
<p>So even though you never touched the bat youhve to go through rabies shots?? Thats fascinating… and scary.</p>
<p>We are in the middle of a house renovation, adn the contractors accidentally let a chipmunk in. We spent most of mothers day chasing him/her around, trying to corral it, to no avail. A few days later he ran by me as I sat here typing. He unlimately starved, and my s’s friend found his little remains 
But they are destructive little buggers…</p>
<p>TheresaCPA-- great story!! Hope you got pictures!</p>
<p>How did you know you had to do rabies shots? In our former home we often had a bat fly in if some one left a door open, they liked to hide behind paintings hung uo high on the walls. We usually could get them out with a broom but sometimes I am sure we stopped fighting the losing battle, left the doors open and went to bed…I guess living in the country no one was actually scared of them!</p>
<p>It was poison oak that put the fear of God into me :eek: not critters</p>
<p>Why did you have to get rabies shots? Did you have contact with the bat? I don’t understand. I have been around bats in barns, attics, sheds, etc. my whole life and have never had a rabies shot. No one I know has ever had the shots, unless they were actually bitten, and those are few and far between. You are far more likely to get rabies from a skunk or a raccoon then from a bat, particularly one thats just flies through the house.</p>
<p>TheresaCPA, you made me laugh out loud.</p>
<p>I’m wondering about the reason for the shots as well. We have bats in the eaves of our rented summer cabin in Wisconsin. They eat the mosquitoes and we do our best to stay out of one another’s way.</p>
<p>We were awoken one night by an owl flying around the living room. Apparently, to judge by the ash trail, it had fallen down the chimney. We spent hours and hours with various lights on and off and windows/doors open, lobbing throw pillows at it trying to get it to leave. The best part was that we were terrified that it would claws/peck our eyes out so we both had towels wrapped around our heads with just our eyes showing. All in all, a fun night.</p>
<p>DH handled a dead raccoon that the dogs played with, and then also petted the dogs. The dogs were protected by their rabies vaccines, the husband – not. Our vet told him that, if the raccoon had rabies, if DH touched its blood or saliva, and if DH then rubbed his eyes or mouth – there was a strong chance of his contracting the disease.</p>
<p>So he had to get the series of shots. He could only get it at the hospital; apparently doctors’ offices don’t have it. It was a series of five, cost around $3500 (thank goodness for insurance), and wasn’t so bad. Not fun, but really no biggie, except for the scheduling.</p>
<p>We were told that rabies – if you get it – is 100% fatal, which is why they insist you get the shots, even if there’s no proof you’ve been bitten.</p>
<p>Yes, but you don’t need shots unless you had some form of contact. Bats always get such a bad rap and are such beneficial animals. They are facing all sorts of pressure (lack of habit, insecticide,etc) that their populations are taking a large hit. They eat many, many mosquitoes and some are unique pollinaters of plants. We have always just opened a window or a door and the bat flies out.</p>
<p>I imagine the reason for getting rabies shots, even without evidence of a bite, is that it is possible to be bitten during the night, and unaware. Better to be protected than to take a risk.</p>
<p>Years ago we had a bat get into our house. (They can squeeze themselves through very small openings.) We called the big zoo in our area’s city for advice. They put us in touch with the “small mammal house” and we were told to get some hairspray and to spray it at the bat. Apparently the stiffener in the hairspray makes the membranes in the bat’s wings unable to flex and the bat drops to the ground. It can then be picked up by a shovel and put in a bag to be turned in for rabies testing.</p>
<p>Well, I ran to the store and purchased a can of some “super hold” hairspray pronto. However, the problem I ran into is that the distance the spray is designed to travel (arm’s length) is less than my comfort distance from a bat. I would spray the stuff, screaming all the time, whenever the bat took flight, but stayed too far from the bat for the spray to reach it. </p>
<p>We were going away on vacation the next day so I just sealed off the room the bat was in (even putting towels around the door) and we left the next morning. We imagine the bat either starved or escaped outside; never found a sign of it upon our return.</p>
<p>The protocol is to error on the side of caution with the shots since the disease is considered 100% per cent fatal. Although someone survived a while back, in Wisconsin? In her case, the issue became whether to give gamma globulin.</p>