I’ve never desired to be a landlord, but from time to time I’ve been one despite myself. One of my principles in that unfortunate situation is to avoid killing my tenants if at all possible. Unfortunately, though, that’s a brutal choice I’ve had to make sometimes. I can’t have mice eating the food in the kitchen—even if one did thoughtfully place a piece of chocolate in one of my boots—and there’s no peaceful way to deal with carpenter ants who’ve taken up residence in the log house walls.

When I do have to exterminate unwelcome tenants, I do my best to treat them as a native hunter would: I ask their forgiveness first, I honor the life that they give, and I thank them. Then I squash the bloody hell out of them or spray them with some evil manufactured venom. It’s just the way of the world. It’s a green jungle out here.

Other tenants are theoretically welcome, but must be evicted anyway. So it is with the bat family who just moved in under the upstairs window sill, a mere week or two before the window was scheduled to be replaced. They’ll have to leave when the old window’s ripped out, so better to gently urge them to move on now. We don’t appreciate the guano on the deck door mat, either. (Note to tenants: it’s not a good policy to crap on your landlord’s shoes.)

Thus we’ve learned about bat eviction. We’ve learned to place screens hanging down from the sill, which allow bats to leave but not return. We’ve sat on the deck at dusk, and watched with fascination as they’ve emerged from more house cracks than we knew existed. We’ve marveled at their ability to squeeze through small spaces. We’ve flinched as they’ve swooped within inches of our faces. We’ve helpfully pointed out to them which of the annoying bugs they should eat right now, thanks, without honoring those buggy lives.

We’ve also noticed that they’re ignoring the bat house we kindly bought for them before eviction, in keeping with our convictions. And now they’re crapping on one of the deck chairs instead of the doormat. I suspect it’s a message about who’s really in charge around here. So it goes in the life of an accidental landlord.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 16th, 2010 at 12:11 pm and is filed under Grace and Tranquility, Wild Grace. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.