Had enough yet? I sure have! I don’t even have to shovel very often (I’m spoiled; Ross does most of that) but had more than enough anyway. It’s time for it to go away!!
But not quite yet, since I haven’t got my 2025 newsletter written yet. Started it, but then I got distracted making sure all the new people are in my mailing list, and then somehow I wound up in my accounting software and realized things weren’t updating properly, and then there was an email from a student and…. well, you know how it goes, right? If not, I’m jealous!
It’s been a pretty busy winter this year – not only with the fairly typical mice calls, but also rats (mostly in Midland, right now, but we’ve seen some in Tay, also), red squirrels, and one very crafty ermine. And of course, bedbugs and roaches. We’ve also, however, had several customers with small ants invading their spaces and being incredibly active. In winter! It’s crazy! Easily treated though, which is good. Will be going back to all of those to follow up with an exterior granular treatment, also, just to be sure it doesn’t become a recurring issue.
The weirdest thing we have been seeing – or in some cases, not seeing – this winter is bats! Bats flying around inside people’s homes in the middle of winter – what?! Bats are not supposed to be inside homes in the winter. Even when they are roosting inside – which is so not ok – they are supposed to go away for the winter. My understanding is that in this area of Ontario, most over-winter in caves in and around the Collingwood/Blue Mountain area. We’re good with that (as long as they stay out of our customers’ properties over there). But we’ve been getting calls for them this year. In one case, the issue seemed to be most likely to be mice – or perhaps flying squirrels. Lots of various types of poop, but who knows which of the poop-producers were the ones that were being heard above.
So, as we often do, we set up some cameras with peanuts and so on for bait and waited. And waited. For weeks! Not a single hit on any of our cameras. That is very odd!! We revisited, repositioned, and waited some more – and eventually a single bat happened to fall right in the area of one of our cameras! It’s a good thing Jessa and I love a good – if slow – mystery.
There are all sorts of rules about working with bats – not allowed to interfere with their nesting season and all – do they know they have a nesting season? And an overwintering site? Seems like not so much this year!! Anyway, once we figured that one out, we approached some of our other odd attics a bit differently and it does seem there may be a bit of a trend. Not a good one! Bat are very cute – but rabies, not so much.
If you find bats in your home at any time of the year, please do take every precaution to ensure the safety of everyone in the home. Do NOT assume you’d know if you or someone else was bitten. The family of the child that died last year didn’t think there had been contact – but clearly there was.
Better safe than sorry!
Well, I was actually going to write about Dragnet, the product that other companies tell people is safe to use for mosquito and tick control. But now it’s bedtime and I haven’t got to that yet. Oh well! Tomorrow is another day. Might even get to it, actually. Marking is almost all caught up; yay me :)
