Nearly!

September 5, 2017 2:29 PM

A family attempts to subdue a bat on the loose in their kitchen (SLYT).
posted by mandolin conspiracy (54 comments total)

Potentially NSFW - some profanity.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 2:31 PM on September 5, 2017

CATCH HIM DERRY
posted by Damienmce at 2:32 PM on September 5, 2017 [17 favorites]

He's like McGregor, he's got no legs left
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 2:41 PM on September 5, 2017 [16 favorites]

Thank you. This was the moment of unadulterated joy that my day needed.
posted by 256 at 2:43 PM on September 5, 2017

A broom is what does the trick.
posted by doctornemo at 2:49 PM on September 5, 2017

Back in the 1980s a bunch of us college students were living in a tiny, twisty house when we went to see _Aliens_. When we returned home, jolting with adrenaline, a bat snuck into the kitchen. Naturally we went berserk, hollering and racing around.
posted by doctornemo at 2:50 PM on September 5, 2017 [2 favorites]

There's a bat in my kitchen what am I gonna do?
There's a bat in my kitchen what am I gonna do?
Derry gonna fix that rat, that's what he's gonna do
Derry gonna fix that rat
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 2:56 PM on September 5, 2017 [1 favorite]

Reminds me of my favorite Manu Ginobili moment ever.
posted by acidic at 2:58 PM on September 5, 2017 [2 favorites]

The videographer gives Maureen/Marie (?) hell for peering in from outside the door, yet immediately goes to copy her idea. Don't let him yell at you, Maureen. You know what's what.
posted by rewil at 3:02 PM on September 5, 2017 [15 favorites]

You stay right where you are, Maureen.
posted by Capt. Renault at 3:04 PM on September 5, 2017 [6 favorites]

My roomie had one in her room just the other day. After 24 hours in the room it finally tired out sufficiently that I was able to pick it up with salad tongs and toss it out the window. It said some rather rude sounding things to me on the way though. Fly my pretty! Go eat mosquitoes.
posted by Bee'sWing at 3:08 PM on September 5, 2017 [2 favorites]

Doggo caught him a frighten
posted by sandettie light vessel automatic at 3:10 PM on September 5, 2017 [7 favorites]

naw, pupper was not frightened by sky pupper, he is just so little that peeing is a pastime to be carried out anywhere

this is the Irishest thing I have seen in a while and I love it
posted by Countess Elena at 3:15 PM on September 5, 2017 [8 favorites]

#TeamMaureen
posted by Dressed to Kill at 3:17 PM on September 5, 2017 [3 favorites]

I'm pretty sure I learned here on Metafilter that what you do is you turn the lights off in the house, open a door or window, and turn on a light outside. The bat will be attracted to the light and go out on its own.

Or was that raccoons?

Or was that moths?
posted by mudpuppie at 3:26 PM on September 5, 2017 [4 favorites]

I love this to bits. Or should I say...BATS?
posted by turbid dahlia at 3:29 PM on September 5, 2017 [1 favorite]

#TeamPeeingDog
posted by lumpenprole at 3:44 PM on September 5, 2017 [1 favorite]

Or was that moths?

Unwanted house-guests.
posted by maxsparber at 4:00 PM on September 5, 2017 [5 favorites]

Flinging a towel at a little bat like that looks like a likely way to hurt the bat, even if they say they didn't hurt her in this case - Bat World, at least, suggests waiting until the little critter is motionless. From long ago personal experience, in a house with two too many dogs and cats to wait, I also found it effective to detach the screen from a window, hold it up as high as I could, and gently (slow movements! No swatting or waving!) shepherd the bat towards the open window. No fuss, no mess, no bat!
posted by DingoMutt at 4:01 PM on September 5, 2017 [1 favorite]

Seeing mum's apparition behind the door was the most wtf moment in a video full of wtf moments.

Reminds me of my favorite Manu Ginobili moment ever yt .

Congratulations, you got me to cheer for The Spurs.
posted by Room 641-A at 4:04 PM on September 5, 2017

Speaking of bats, I just saw an article about bat-friendly tequila. Bats help pollinate the agave plants that give us tequila - one more reason to love them!
posted by DingoMutt at 4:10 PM on September 5, 2017

Video is unavailable fuck 2017
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 4:23 PM on September 5, 2017 [1 favorite]

The Independent seems to have a version available.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 4:32 PM on September 5, 2017

Here's the original Facebook video.
posted by Miss Cellania at 4:47 PM on September 5, 2017 [5 favorites]

I for one was heartily amused at the combination of commentary and uselessness the cameraman exhibited.
posted by quaking fajita at 5:03 PM on September 5, 2017 [13 favorites]

Aww, it tells me the video was removed from Youtube :C
posted by wires at 5:08 PM on September 5, 2017

Twitter also has it: The world is going to hell. You owe it to yourself to watch this video of Irish people attempting to get a bat out of their kitchen.
posted by rewil at 5:16 PM on September 5, 2017 [3 favorites]

"He's making a mockery out of you, boy!"
posted by jaruwaan at 5:25 PM on September 5, 2017 [6 favorites]

the dog's after peeing

(Working with Newfoundlanders, it confuses and delights me every time something is 'after' something.)
posted by rodlymight at 5:31 PM on September 5, 2017 [5 favorites]

Here's the original Facebook post, for those who can't find it on YouTube anymore.
posted by IcarusFloats at 5:57 PM on September 5, 2017 [3 favorites]

Is it just me or do they have a lot of kitchen cabinets?
posted by lagomorphius at 6:01 PM on September 5, 2017 [4 favorites]

My aunt Mary the farmer has two cats, both good hunters.

They feel she, like every good kitten, should learn to hunt. Towards that goal, they released a bat in her bedroom while she was sleeping.

Naturally, Mary is already a bit nervous around bats after one burst out at her while she was up a ladder doing farmer stuff to a cherimoya tree. She failed to predate that one and wasn't very comfortable with this one either.
posted by sebastienbailard at 6:09 PM on September 5, 2017 [3 favorites]

That was amazing
posted by gerstle at 6:48 PM on September 5, 2017

This is awesome. Also, Louis CK knows who to call in this situation.
posted by amanda at 7:30 PM on September 5, 2017

Next video: Derry's rabies shots

No rabies in Ireland!
posted by fshgrl at 7:54 PM on September 5, 2017 [9 favorites]

Ireland is considered rabies free and practises strict quarantine of imported animals. In Ireland there have been no indigenous rabies cases reported since 1903, and in Northern Ireland since 1923.

Good to know!
posted by SPrintF at 8:05 PM on September 5, 2017 [1 favorite]

The cat I mentioned in an earlier thread could also take a bat in mid-air.


Having been in this exact situation on several occasions, I have to say, I feel for Darry, I absolutely respect Maureen's position on the whole matter, and the dog is not helping.


Also, there is something about bats, that when they know you are trying to catch them, they will fly right at your face with this "I'M A FUCKING BAT" look that will totally make you duck and drop whatever you were trying to catch them with, but is also such an absolute expression of pure joy that you just have to respect it.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 8:13 PM on September 5, 2017 [6 favorites]

Although, the bat is Irish, so I guess it's "I'M A FOOKIN' BAT!"
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 8:16 PM on September 5, 2017 [7 favorites]

OKAY THAT BAT IS FUCKING TINY. That is nothing like the Big Brown Bat of Illinois, with a fifteen fucking inch wingspan, who fell down my chimney and flew into my life when I had a ten-day-old infant. I heard a weird chittering in my bathroom that sounded nothing like the usual cricket being eating by my bug-eating cat, and went in there to discover my cats had helpfully cornered a bat and, mom (me) having arrived, they released him to my custody, whereupon he took off and flew into the room with the baby and I shrieked repeatedly and my husband tried to hit it with a tennis racket while it flew in panicked circles around the TINY ROOM BECAUSE IT HAD A FUCKING FIFTEEN INCH WINGSPAN.

The whole thing was super-traumatic and because the baby was pre-verbal (BEING TEN DAYS OLD AND ALL) the pediatrician had to call the CDC and I had to draw floor plans of where the bat was, which I helpfully annotated with a stickman saying, "AH! IT'S A BAT!" And my husband is all, "Bats are helpful! They eat mosquitos! They don't carry rabies!" because he was in deep denial and the county was all, "Oh hai we captured a rabid bat on Wednesday and you were 1 mile away and your bat was on Saturday so definitely there's a lot of rabies potential here."

Anyway I ended up with bat-PTSD, and I imagine the poor bat (who escaped) had human-PTSD, but I got ambien and I don't think bat-pharmacies carry that.

So a year later, when the baby is cruising but not walking (i.e., hanging on to furniture and walking from place to place as long as he can hang on like me at a roller rink) and my older kid is 3, there's this huge fuckin' storm that blows up midday and a dumb-ass bat takes refuge in our chimney and gets blown down the chimney and OF COURSE explodes into our living room while we're eating some takeout burgers and I panic and race for the bathroom without either of my children because this is how good a mom I am in rabies-related emergencies: I abandon all of my kids. I stand in the bathroom shouting, "KIDS! GET IN HERE! RIGHT NOW!" Which the 3-year-old does, but the 1-year-old just stands there laughing because mom is shouting like a crazy person. Eventually my husband hands me the baby and we shut ourselves in the bathroom (both kids laughing like lunatics because mom keeps shouting incoherent bat-related things) and he chases the bat around with some form of sporting equipment.

My 3-year-old is just barely old enough to tell stories at this point, and he loves to tell the story of the bat: "We eating hangaburs (hamburgers) and a BAT falls down a CHIMNEY where SANTA goes, and flies round and round and round and round and mom yells 'AH! A BAT! GET INNA BAFROOM NOW! INNA BAFROOM NOW!'" [and he dances around like an insane person, shouting about getting in the bathroom now] "AH! AH! AH! A BAT! GET INNA BAFROOM!" Fortunately at that point he runs out of the room to illustrate my fleeing the bat and can't continue the story because he's left the room.

Anyway it cost $1300 to get my chimney capped but MONEY WELL SPENT.

Anyway I want to see that movie where the guy is in the avalanche and rescues his phone but abandons his children, because apparently I am that guy, although to be fair I abandoned all my technology too.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:38 PM on September 5, 2017 [39 favorites]

Memories of childhood, one Thanksgiving in my grandparents' house in rural Connecticut, originally a Colonial inn on the Boston Turnpike. At least 13 of us, 7 kids & 6 adults, arming ourselves with whatever was handy & running around alternately advancing & retreating from room to room. I remember my cousin Jonathan made one heroic foray with a Wiffle bat, yelling like a barbarian as he charged then twice as loud in retreat. Except for the music it was all very much like a chase scene from Scooby Doo. Eventually my Aunt Kitty, unflappable & built like a battleship, calmly sailed into the room the bat was in at the time & caught him against the wall with a colander. Somebody brought along a serving tray or some such & slid it under then out he went into the night.
posted by scalefree at 11:13 PM on September 5, 2017 [2 favorites]

Between the video and the lovely bat stories in the thread I have laughed myself hoarse and am being put to bed. Hopefully there are no bats in there.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 11:35 PM on September 5, 2017

Aaand the video is gone. Sigh.

I'm going to assume it was somewhat like my attempt to rid a store (with very high ceilings) of a bird using only a pool skimmer attached to 5 hangers and a garbage bag. I got an innovation award at work that year. (No bonus, though.)
posted by greermahoney at 11:50 PM on September 5, 2017 [1 favorite]

Here is a tweet containing the video direct from its creator.
posted by Rock Steady at 4:27 AM on September 6, 2017 [1 favorite]

I'm pretty sure I learned here on Metafilter ...

Found bat in kitchen. Can I eat it?
posted by zippy at 7:26 AM on September 6, 2017 [3 favorites]

1) turn into batter
2) use second weekly question to ask about eating raw batter
posted by Room 641-A at 7:41 AM on September 6, 2017 [3 favorites]

In a long-distance relationship with a bat, unsure whether I should stay. [more inside]
posted by zippy at 8:24 AM on September 6, 2017 [2 favorites]

When I was a social worker, I traveled Eastern Iowa doing assessments of various children. I then called in to the state Medicaid management agency once a week to get the children approved for services. I made these calls from my home so I had all my paperwork in front of me and was calm, sorted out, and prepared, and I had a good working relationship with our reviewer.

Well. One morning we were halfway through my first case when a bat dove in front of my face and I SCREAMED and dropped the phone. The poor reviewer probably thought I was being killed. He was very patient as I informed him that a bat had just flown in front of my face and went to open my two patio doors to the outside. We reviewed the rest of my cases and the bat had left by the time I was off the phone. He didn't even call me "Bat Lady" in the future.
posted by epj at 8:34 AM on September 6, 2017 [1 favorite]

Aww, poor lil guy. I'm glad he made it out safe despite subpar bat-removal protocol.

Bats fuckin' rule. I moved into a new apparment earlier this year and we used to be able to wach the bats fly around at sunset. If there's a heaven it involves you being able to sit on the balcony with somone who inexplicably loves you at sunset and watch the bats fly around.

But they're building another unit in my complex now and the bats don't much care to fly around a construction site. And i should be mad, but i moved into this complex myself, didn't I? I loved the bats and am also the reason they left.

Welcome to America.
posted by East14thTaco at 8:50 AM on September 6, 2017 [4 favorites]

The dad-baiting makes this far more horrifying than a similar bat video. (Warning: slightly annoying EW link)
posted by BigBrooklyn at 9:52 AM on September 6, 2017

When I was a teenager, I did an internship where we went out into a forest in Mexico, put up nets, and caught bats. We'd go out in the night and count how many bats of various types we caught and then untangle them from the nets very carefully so we could let them go again without injury. The purpose was to get a count and with some other data we'd gather show the importance of the bats to the ecosystem. We wore leather gloves because the bats would try to bite you, but their little teeth couldn't get through the leather. I learned to really cherish the little guys from that study.

HOWEVER - the reason the study was needed was because farmers, in particular, were indiscriminately killing bats as a reaction to vampire bats, which predate on their livestock.

Let me repeat that. Vampire bats.

We were instructed that if we caught a vampire bat in the nets, we had to carefully approach it and try not to get bitten (because they can bite right through leather - they bite cows, after all) and squeeze them to death because there was no real way for us to safely untangle them and release them, because RABIES and BIG NASTY TEETH. I do wish that we could still insert images in posts, because I feel that neither the text nor just a link can quite capture the anxiety that should come to a reader of these instructions.

My response to this was:

OH.HELL.NO.

Luckily I did not encounter a vampire bat that summer.
posted by Muddler at 12:51 PM on September 6, 2017 [3 favorites]

We occasionally get a bat upstairs, where children used to live, but one episode will always stick with me. I gave my teenage daughter a broom and told her it was to shoo the bat out. I should have been more explicit. I opened the windows, the bat flew by, and daughter wielded her broom like a baseball bat and smacked that bat with the handle end of the broom, directly out the window. It landed on the roof, and we watched as it came to and flew off. He probably warned his bat buddies, since there have been no bats in here since.
posted by Miss Cellania at 2:56 PM on September 6, 2017 [2 favorites]

His buddies called him "wiffle" from that day on.
posted by zippy at 5:21 PM on September 6, 2017 [3 favorites]

Followup...

Meet the Flemings, the Internet-famous Irish family who freaked out over a bat:

When Tadhg Fleming saw his dad in the kitchen sporting a soccer uniform while chasing a bat with a tea towel, he immediately grabbed his phone and started filming.

"I seen him in my shorts with the socks up to his knees and he just got a tea towel, a small little tea towel, that you knew he wasn't gonna catch the bat with that," Fleming, who makes comedy videos in his tiny Irish town of Ballymacelligott, told As It Happens host Carol Off. "And I just said, 'Oh my God, I gotta get this on.'"

The ensuing footage shows Derry Fleming — a.k.a "Batdad" — chasing the winged creature around the kitchen while his wife and son look on and the panicked family dog Basil pees on the floor.

The above link, in addition to the interview, has a working link to the video.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 3:16 PM on September 7, 2017 [1 favorite]

That is not how I pictured our fearless narrator looking! Also, the video in the news article skips over the dog peeing on the floor which is pretty important, I say.

Don't miss "Keeping Up With the Flemings" videos!
posted by amanda at 7:49 PM on September 7, 2017