88V8 wrote: I can only think that it came down the chimney. As it's closed at the top - flue liner - this doesn't say much for the state of the stack pointing in the old attic, where I presume we now have... bats.
There are other ways into the property. About 30 years ago, I was renovating a small rural cottage that I'd bought, and I lifted the upstairs floorboards to do some work on the central heating pipes. It was a bit of a surprise to find a small bundle of rags that twitched and moved slightly amid the insulation. Sure enough, it was a pipistrelle bat that had embedded itself in the centre of the house, right between the ground floor and the first floor. It was late February, I think, and this bat had certainly found the warmest hibernation spot in the entire building.
But how had it got in? (Especially since all the floorboards had been firmly nailed down and then carpeted over.) The only explanation that really fitted was that it had gained access to the loft by sneaking under the roof tiles, and that it had then skittered down the gap between the plasterboard internal walls, to gain access to the underfloor cavity.
Very odd! Bats were not so heavily protected in those days, but I phoned the RSPCA, who advised me to give it a bit of milk (which it drank quite readily), and then to try and resettle it in another location where no building work was going on. They said it would probably be ready for a little feeding sortie some time soon, so I should be careful not to put it somewhere where it couldn't get out. A pile of logs in the covered annexe seemed like a suitable place, with a few leaves and suchlike for warmth.
Vlad, as I called him, proved to be quite amenable to the move. He latched onto my finger, and I was able to carry him downstairs hanging upside down from my digit. My main concern was that he was absolutely jumping with fleas! (He was.) A few days later, he had flown the coop and was gone.
I wonder how many of today's laws I would have broken?
BJ
