Rats? No Bats

What? We returned from South Korea to find that our roof was being reroofed for winter and what they said was sort of astounding to us. They said it wasn't rats getting into the attic areas it was bats.

???

They said what bats like to do is to burrow under roofing tiles during the day to sleep there. So, somehow they had found a way also into parts of our attic somehow too. So, all my hundreds of dollars now was in thinking they were  rats. Instead they were bats which is something I have never before dealt with in a house.

So, if you have roofing tiles (lifetime cement tiles) on your roofs then here in California this is what is happening in the drought. Because that is the only explanation I can think of because we never had this problem before ever in any house I ever lived in in California-ever.

The roofers said that this is a problem you can have with roofing tiles because the bats can burrow under them because they are only attached at the top. However, this seems kind of crazy to me. Because I can barely lift them up to get under them myself because of the way they are all stacked up the roof to the capstone pieces. And under a cement tile roof of course is the tar paper. So, a nail with a wire attached to it a the top of the cement tile with a hole in the tile allows the whole thing to stay there through almost any weather. Even a 120 mph blast hasn't dislodged my roofing tiles in storms in the past.

However, it did suck off my skylight in our kitchen once about 10 years ago. So, we came home to a waterfall in our kitchen from the hole above from our skylight being lifted off in the wind. So, I climbed up in the storm on a ladder barefoot (you are usually safer barefoot in the rain in an emergency if you have to go on your roof because you can feel your way better(as long as it's warm enough outside to do this in an emergency). So, I got up on the roof and what did I find? The skylight wasn't damaged at all and the glass wasn't broken either, just the open hole remained of the skylight. So, I dragged the whole skylight apparatus back into place and placed a plywood and a weight so it couldn't blow off until I could make permanent repairs. Then when the storm ended I took a large drill and drilled into the frame so it couldn't fly off in a wind again. Then I set lag screws into the wood frame so it couldn't ever take off ever again in a high wind. (Even if it was 150 miles per hour).

But Bats? This is nuts. Also, the roofers said they might come back again because you never know with bats. What?

Also, if you live in a forest like I do with deer (hundreds of them) and skunks (beautiful ones) sometimes wandering through our backyard at night. And Raccoons (pretty crazy in the drought) not like most years, and spiders crawling up drains to get water in the drought.

This has to be the craziest year for critters in California that I have ever seen because of the 100 to 500 year drought.

And I've lived in some part of California for most of the years since 1952 when I was 4.