One New Year's Eve, my ex and I woke up as a bat was flying over our bed. He ran out of our bedroom, shutting the door behind him, leaving me alone with the bat.
In his defense, if your ex was Dick Clark, he did have to get to work.
There was mesh on the outside for a while but it was removed when they plugged which has obviously proven to be insufficient.
I did exactly what you told your kids to do. Except I couldn't verbalize "bat" until I was halfway out of the house.
I was going to say: come to the Netherlands. We do have bats, but generally speaking they stay outside (I've NEVER heard anyone having bats in their house, except maybe someone who owned an old manor and had the attic to host them).
...But unfortunately the wolf is coming back. We now have about a dozen in one of our national parks (that are quite small, by the way) and they will multiply. And we have more and more ticks that carry Lyme disease. And mosquitos carrying West Nile Virus are also dropping in these days.
So bears ... or a wolf pack plus an assortment of zoonoses. Pick your poison.
...But unfortunately the wolf is coming back. We now have about a dozen in one of our national parks (that are quite small, by the way) and they will multiply.
I was only just reading how they've returned to the Ardennes so it makes sense they've roamed north. I have mixed feelings about Wolves.
We have no wolves but plenty of modern folk law about big cats supposedly roaming the countryside.
Last edited by chenda on Tue Aug 29, 2023 3:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.
If all the humans on the planet were placed shoulder to shoulder next to each other, they would only take up a space approximately the size of metropolitan London, leaving lots of free space for wolves and bears.
Turns out our attic was not a birthing center but a graveyard. Two adult bats got stuck on the stickies our exterminator put for mice and died. I experienced no grief. I uttered no farewells. There was no need to reflect upon whether I am better person because of the experience for I am certainly not. I only detest more things. Two openings on our roof were patched. I thanked the workers for their efforts. To be continued.
I would add the Old Testament and Sam Peckinpah. I'm sensing judgment through plague as well as violence as rite of passage vibe.
I grew up in the suburbs. Animals were pets. Now the curtain has broken and I'm mixing with the animal kingdom and possibly some Satanic bullshit on top of it. It definitely feels like some type of inbreaking. I'm taking this shit personally despite the fact I take everything personally. I had some type of raptor like creature fly over my car a month ago. The shadow of its wingspan was like a small plane that a Walmart heir would kill himself in. Someone told me it was bald eagle which also fly around here because they escape from some nearby sanctuary. Someone once pointed out a juvie bald eagle sitting on tree branch. I'm like aren't these asshole supposed to be extinct. If I see a polar bear, I'm done.
According to my vet, bats making their way inside is the number one way 100%- indoor cats get rabies. Unless it is a shots-for-all fest, I’d not recommend sicking a cat on a bat.
Of course, I might have an abnormally close relationship with my particular cat.
Rabies was a concern. The bat could have bit us in our sleep. Then what. I need rabies like I need a hole in the head. Or maybe it's the other way around.
The local bat expert turns out to be a complete prima donna. Guy thinks he's the Michael Jordan of bat removal. I won't bore with the details, but suffice it to say, we are no longer on speaking terms. Probably not in my best interests, especially in a small town prone to bat infestation, but it's how things go sometimes. If anyone lives in the NJ area and knows a bat removal expert without an ego the size of Gotham City, PM me.
I guess it's a choice between trying to eradicate the internal ecosystem or increase it in order to control it. With cats, I just see a WW II scenario breaking out. I align with Stalin (Cat) to get rid of Hitler (Bat) and once that is accomplished, I have to deal with Stalin (Cat) for years thereafter. And as we have learned, Stalin exceeded in Hitler in some measure. So that's not really a viable option.
European Jews tend to refer to Hitler's actions as "Shoah" (possibly the greatest movie of all time) as it is the Hebrew word for catastrophe and destruction. The word Holocaust is controversial because it connotes burnt offering to God as a sacrifice and some find its use offensive. So this adds a dimension to whatever the fuck I am talking about.
One thing I have learned during this experience: how a simple thank you goes a long way. I thanked the police and they wrote back saying they passed it on to the officers as well as the chief. I thanked the company who took the dead bats away and they appreciated me taking time out to say it. I tipped the garbage guy for having to get out of his truck and toss all our ripped out carpet away and he seemed shocked I did something like that. I tipped the painters who started all this bat bullshit and they come back to fix the things they missed. Not withstanding the dust up with the magnaminous fucking prick bat specialist, I can see how this simple kindness thing has some merit.
We are back to 2021 net worth despite having more debt. We also have golden handcuffs because despite our home going up 20% in two years interest rates have gone up 4%. Not that we'd want to sell but the fact is we can't sell. There was an interesting article in the NYT about people in Switzerland being unable to purchase which is setting a model for the recent US experience. The fact is that people with home ownership in Switzerland have seven times the net worth of those renting in Switzerland. Two days ago I came upon three bears. Being that there was no little blond girl in sight, I realized that this was not a fairy tale but an absolute fucking nightmare. It's one thing seeing one bear. It's another seeing three of them and watching them stop and stare at you. I pretended not to notice and kept on walking and starting singing while thinking if I get mauled by three bears it would be kind of a cool obituary. "Henry, who never lit up a room he entered, never traveled the world, never offered to help a stranger in need, never met a bridge he wouldn't burn, was mauled to death on a dirt road by three bears while singing "Fucking Bears Following Fucking Me" to the tune of Happy Birthday. He will be missed by at most one person."
When I lived in Switzerland (2000-2004), it was coming use mortgages that never paid back any principal. It was essentially a perpetuity where the house was yours in name (and responsibility) only, but where the bank held all the equity and you just paid interest, taxes, and maintenance. Essentially a triple-net lease structure, which is common in commercial real estate... and now in practice has been fostered on consumers with 10+ years of ZIRP. This prices houses very high. It also removes liquidity (houses for sale) and as such the prices are kinda meaningless (paper wealth).
Note that this system wouldn't be broken structurally (e.g. "can't move because can't afford to refinance at higher rates") if people had actually saved up their home equity instead of cashing it in/out. If that had be done, the home equity of the sold home would reduce the principal of the mortgage of the bought home and effectively cancel out the higher rates. Same math as if one was rolling a long term bond portfolio.