“See?  This is why we should have called the San Diego County exterminator instead of trying to get rid of the bats by ourselves.  We had no idea what we were doing!”

“But, the internet said you could exclude the bats and the problem would be solved.”

I love my husband, but he’s a constant do-it-yourselfer, without a lot of expertise.  He has a huge honey-do list that he’s written for himself.  I don’t have to give him any projects to do, because he’s constantly finding them.  He’s great at changing the oil in my car, taking care of the yard, keeping hinges oiled in the house, and a thousand other little things, and I’m grateful to him.  However, he does have a problem.  He doesn’t know how to do a lot of the projects he takes on.  He loves to tell me, “I’ll learn as I go.”  And, that’s why there’s a crack in the pipe under the sink, a basement that’s been “nearly finished” for over a year now, and a partially reupholstered couch in our front room.

Occasionally, he’ll get instructions on some internet site or another, but he only skims the article and doesn’t read all the way through.  So, when we found bats roosting in the attic a few months ago, he wouldn’t let me call the San Diego County exterminator or anyone else to help us with our problem.  He got online, said “Hmm mmm” a couple of times, and went to work excluding a colony of bats.

Now, I did some research of my own, and quickly learned that we most likely had a maternity colony roosting in the attic.  If the bats were excluded improperly or at the wrong time, we could really harm the animals as well as unintentionally causing a bigger bat problem for ourselves.  Plus, I realized there were state and federal laws that protect bats and govern when and how you can remove them.  I didn’t read through the laws myself, but begged my husband to contact the San Diego County exterminator at least for some advice.  He told me not to worry, he’d take care of it.

Sure enough, over the last couple of weeks, we’d both noticed a smell that was getting stronger and stronger.  It took us a while to locate the source, and unfortunately my husband discovered some new projects he wanted to undertake while we searched.  Finally, though, it was clear the smell was strongest in the part of the attic where the bats had roosted.

It was worse than I expected, though.  A few baby bats lay dead and rotting on the floor of the attic.  Bat urine and feces hadn’t been cleaned up, so it had dried and stained the wall and insulation.  I didn’t look any closer – I didn’t want to think too much about maggots or anything else that was crawling over that mess.  I think my husband finally saw the look on my face, because he immediately went downstairs to call the San Diego County exterminator for help.