One night last week, after Cory had gone to bed, we suddenly heard this terrible, loud, squeaky/chirpy noise in the kitchen. It turned out to be coming from under the dishwasher, but we couldn’t see what it was because the dishwasher door was open and it was dark under there. We didn’t want to get close to it, of course, so I went and got a flashlight so that I could have a look. What I saw was a little brown face with beady eyes, sticking out of the gap in the baseboard between the wall and the bottom of the dishwasher. A mouse, I thought, but on reflection, more likely a young rat. It was smaller than most rats I had seen, but kind of big to be a mouse. After a few seconds it withdrew into the hole and was quiet. I figured it was a rat that got kind of stuck in the narrow passage along the dishwasher and got scared when it saw a cat in the kitchen. (For the record, the cats ran, which is great since we are not crazy about those emergency vet visits.)
We decided to mop the floor, and figured that between the cleaning smell and the scare with the cats and the flashlight it wouldn’t be eager to come out again for a while, and we’d call the apartment office in the morning.
An hour and a half later, while we were at the part of From Russia with Love where James Bond finally fights the SPECTRE agent who has been following him the whole movie, a bat flew out of the kitchen and started zipping around the apartment. It’s interesting to see a Halloween decoration flying around your Christmas tree.
Thud said, “What is that?!”
I said, “It’s a bat.”
He said, “How do we get rid of it?” By this time we were standing up but constantly having to duck the bat.
“Well…” I said and opened the front door. Our apartment isn’t that big, and Cory’s bedroom was closed. On its next circuit, the bat found the door and left. And then I said, “Hey! Now the exterminator won’t have to put down rat poison!”
And that’s the story of the bat in our apartment. I did hear maintenance inspecting the attic this morning, although I don’t know if they found anything else, but hopefully that will be the end of it.
4 Comments
Things flying in apartments absolutely freak me out… you were MUCH calmer about the whole thing than I would I have been. I’ve got the willies just reading about it. whole body shiver
Well, for “said” in this I think you can read “yelled.” Calm doesn’t describe either of us, although I think Elf’s brain was the only one that was still processing data.
You know that I’m on the “Bat Team” at school, but I still don’t want a live one as a mascot. Make sure you read Cory the book Silverwing by Kenneth Oppel as soon as he’s old enough. It’s an awesome book about a bat named Shade. Much less scary than a real bat!
When my friend Natalie’s daughter was about Cory’s age, a bat got into her house and settled on top of a kitchen cabinet. She grabbed the baby and fled.
I seem to remember something about her husband pushing the bat off the cabinet with a broom, but I’m not sure if they had to call animal control to get rid of it.