It's bat season, which means the man who catches bats that have flown indoors is working overtime.
"I don't think I've been home before 9 p.m. for like a month and a half now," Garrett Evans, who owns the nuisance wildlife animal control company Drivin' Me Batty, said.
August and September are when the young bats born this year start to fly on their own, says Evans. "They're unfortunately the ones that get confused and get into houses and get people a little bit worried, little bit scared," he said.
All bats are more active now because they are gearing up for winter hibernation, a fact Jonathon Trainor found out the hard way. "I kind of just woke up to it. I got up for school, and it was something flying around my room. I thought it was a bird," Trainor said.
If you wake up to find a bat in your room, or a bat might have, or did have, close contact with anyone in your home, you should catch the bat so it can be tested for rabies, says Evans. "It is really low, it is really rare, but it is a possibility," he said.
"It didn't touch me. I don't play that. I gotta live to tell the story, ain't got time for that," Trainor said, so he didn't get rabies shots, and he and his grandfather shooed the bat out a window.
For people not as lucky as Trainor, Evans says only try to catch the bat on your own if you really know what you're doing. Otherwise, just call an animal control specialist.
"The best thing to do is just kind of stay calm, the calmer you are, the calmer the bat's going to be," Evans said.
People who have had close encounters with bats agree. "Stay calm, the more you move around, the more they come near you," Trainor said.
"Try to be calm. Either get out of the house until you have some one come and get rid of it or shut the door wherever the bat's at," Edna Jackson, who also found a bat flying around her home, said.
After a bat has found its way into your house, it's important to find where it got in and fill in the space, Evans says. Bats are territorial and will often come back.
