I have to burn my apartment down

What if he's just hung like a mosquito?

 

True. He could get a bad bat bite. Better cover that bad boy with a thimble or something.

 

If it returns tonight, close off the doors to that room, open a window (make sure to take the screen off) and go into another room for the night. It will find it's way out by morning, and in the meantime the chances of it bothering you are almost nil.

 

This is what's freaking me out. I have no idea where it could have gotten in. The mail slot on the door is sealed. We don't have gaps in the windows.
We're moving into our house in March (hopefully sooner if it gets built faster) so I guess I'll just burn this place and we'll move into my parents place. Fuck bats.

 

Best American Batsmanship right there.

 

I grew up in a 100-year-old house that was in bad, bad shape by the time we got out of there. One night I fell asleep on the downstairs couch watching The Great Outdoors. I half-awoke during the bat scene -- and WTF do you know, there is a bat flying right at my head at that exact moment. Probably my weirdest moment ever.

Anyway, Glenn's right on, although depending on the area you could be running the risk of more things flying in. In my case, a tennis racket and a bucket worked great to trap the thing against a wall/floor and corral it toward the outside. But you'd end up face-to-face with it if you did that, and it doesn't sound like you're all that into that idea.

 

And bring friends.

You should also invest in a tennis racket.

 

I hate bats. I left the basement door open at my house once as it was getting dark and then got distracted by a phone call. An hour later I closed up the house, but it was too late. I saw the bat flutter through the basement that night.

Of course there were a million good places for it to hide and I couldn't find it anywhere. I left the door open again in the morning and hoped it went away. Two weeks later, the fucking thing flew up the basement stairs and through the living room, up the stairs and into my bedroom. Nested against the white curtains over my bed.

I shut off the room and slept on the couch that night, and then called an exterminator. He charged me $75 to go in there and capture it in a coffee can. Best money I ever spent.

 

Sack the fuck up, dude.

And pellet gun or tennis racket.

 

I worked in a warehouse shipping department one summer during college, driving lifts around. Bats would enter the warehouse and would swoop right over our lifts, within a foot or so. One of my coworkers had a piece of wood in his lift. One night he caught one just right with a home run swing, his lift driving full speed at the bat like he was in a jousting competition. He sent the thing sailing what seemed like a hundred feet down to the other end of the warehouse. Hit the metal wall with a loud thud. Still one of the funniest things I've ever seen. And I don't know how the bat didn't just explode into a pile of blood and guts when he hit it.

 

I totally had the freak out reaction. It happened to us when I was like 23 and just out of college. I heard a scratching noise in the kitchen, so I walked in and turned on the light, and there was a bat sitting in our dishes.

I had to go back through the bedroom to get to the front door, where I just yelled at my wife "Get up, we're leaving and grab me some pants!"

 

I don't understand why bats are scary to some people. They are basically just flying rats with sharp claws and teeth that carry diseases and like to nest in your hair.

It's bunnies that freak me out.