The Bat Man Cometh

Those of you who have ever owned a house know that just when you need nothing to go wrong with it is exactly when a wing will fall off, a room will spontaneously combust, or the heat will run cold or the a/c will run hot.  Am I right or am I right? 

While I was at the NIH Clinical Center in Bethesda, Keith was forced onto the battlefield in the house against a fierce foe.  The evil home invader was a steroid induced BOUS (Bat of Unusual Size) that did much damage psychologically to my Wesley (Keith, for those of you who have not seen The Princess Bride), but thankfully none to the house itself.  It was bigger than a Clydesdale with a sour disposition and an ugly reputation.  It taunted Keith, flying just out of range of his swinging tennis racket.  Of course, I don't want to think what would have happened if he had actually made contact...Anyhoo, the BOUS disappeared into some crack or crevice of our old girl not to be seen again.  But the Josh, the Bat Man, was called.

There were several places and ways the BOUS could have gotten in, and we gladly paid Josh to deal with them so that a tennis racket would never again be swung against a living, breathing organism in this house.  Due to the rain that was pummeling KC while I was away, the bat plug of the chimney had to wait.  Lucky for us as it turns out...

So Josh, the Bat Man, and his trustee minion Kato (the trustee minion is always named Kato, isn't he?) came yesterday to finish the bat job, but we also had something new for them - a stench of death and decomposition emanating from somewhere in the basement.  Keith couldn't find the source of the smell, and quite frankly, bbq tongs, safety glasses and gardening gloves seemed inappropriate protection given the level of the stench.  So we added the challenge of finding and mitigating the source of the smell to Josh's task list.  He and Kato seemed to relish the opportunity.  Based on the smell, Josh was thinking possum or raccoon.  But as I looked at Kato, I stared into the eyes of someone who knew his future included a crawl space, a mask, and later in the evening, a large alcohol based beverage.  I struggled with the urge to offer him the bbq tongs, but felt that perhaps he would not find the humor in it.

Long possum short, Kato found the decomposing varmint wrapped in a pile of old insulation in the crawl space, while Josh, the Bat Man, was up on the roof performing the balance of the chimney work to prevent future bat entry.  It definitely pays to be the boss in this case.  They found what seemed to be the entry point for the possum superhighway and proceeded to formulate a plan to plug several trouble spots.  They'll be back at the end of the week to finish the job.  Keep your fingers crossed that nothing else comes in and dies by then.  I don't think we (nor Kato) could handle it!

Needless to say, I missed my nap yesterday afternoon.  A situation I fully intend to rectify this afternoon.  And yes, the stench is gone.  Winner!