well, The Great Bat Invasion may have come to an end since we decided we had finally had enough and had them all exterminated.

ha! just kidding. no, we didn't have them killed, but we did call in the wisconsin bat specialists who specialize in getting the bats out without resorting to death and dismemberment by putting one way "doors", called excluders, on all the points of entry that they can find and keep them out by sealing up all possible points they might use to try to get back into the house. after the work was done we were advised that's it not unusual to find a rogue bat or two who couldn't find their way out of the house, but if we didn't have any visitors after a week, they had more than likely all moved on to a more hospitable house. i'm almost a little sad to report that it appears that they've all left without even saying goodbye.

interestingly, they told us that even though they we were exiting through the chimney at dusk, they were more than likely not living in it and that it's far more typical that they enter through other access points and crawl throughout the structure of the house until they find someplace cozy to sleep and then enter the chimney through a hole in the mortar ( er. i guess that means no fires this year. ) of the chimney for a speedy exit at night. indeed, they did find loads of guano near the gaps where the dormers meet up with the roof which they theorized were the most likely points of entry.

sadly, we learned that one of our neighbors has taken to putting out poison to kill the bats that are getting in her house, so hopefully they don't all decide to go next door!