By Vicki Brown
I wanted a bat box.
What is a bat box, you ask? It is a box designed to house bats.
Now I am pretty sure your next question is “why?”.
Why would anyone want a bat box? For mosquitoes.
Huh?
Really, bats have had a bad reputation for a long time, but they are amazing creatures who had absolutely nothing to do with Covid, and they do NOT make nests in your hair!
Bats are kind of cute in the face, have incredible sonar capabilities, but their most wonderful attraction is that they eat mosquitoes.
A single bat can eat up to 1,000 mosquitoes a night. THAT is why I wanted a bat box.
Mosquitoes love me. I am evidently delicious. If I go outside, I will be bitten. It is a definite event…like the rising and setting of the sun. However, my husband can sit outside all night and not be bitten once. If I want to enjoy the great outdoors, I have to literally sit over a flaming citronella candle, which is uncomfortable in 90 degree evenings, or spray myself with insect repellent so thick that I can barely breathe. It just isn’t worth it.
I have tried everything…thermacell electronic repellents, a bug zapper, homemade outdoor repellents, and a host of other things…I still end up with mosquito bites, or I am just too uncomfortable by the smells and heat and go inside and sit on the screened-in back porch…10 feet from my husband who is listening to music under the patio lights while sitting at the picnic table outside.
Sigh.
But when I learned about bats…well, that was the answer. I wanted a bat box.
Unbelievably, we recently went to visit an old friend who enjoys woodwork. And guess what he had on hand…a bat box!
He gave me a handmade bat box, sturdy and heavy, and embossed with the Batman logo. It is so cute! But this started a major battle in my house.
According to instructions, the box must be 20-30 feet high, and in direct sunlight for at least 6 or more hours a day.
I began looking around my yard. I only have one tree with direct sunlight, and it’s dead…we are going to have it cut down. So that won’t work. But then my attention was caught by my giant chimney. I could set the box against the chimney. It’s perfect. Direct sunlight and is overlooking my backyard…home to millions of mosquitoes.
I told my husband of my plan.
“ABSOLUTELY NOT!” yelled my husband. “Those bats will fly down the chimney.”
“No, they won’t,” I said. “The chimney has a cover.”
“Then they will get into the attic. Absolutely not!” he said.
“Why would the bats give up a perfectly good wooden condo to live in my trashy attic?” I asked. “This is a great box for them…they don’t want to live in my attic!”
“Absolutely not!” my husband said. “I will find someplace to put it, but NOT on the roof!”
“But…”
“NO!”
So, the bat box was put inside the screened-in back porch just waiting for a place to go, like a lot of other junk.
And it is still sitting on the back porch, away from bats and mosquitoes…just like me.
