From my battle with the bats 15 years ago - The good news for your daughter is after she completes her rabies vaccines she should be immune to rabies for a number of years. Hopefully by the time her immunity wanes, she will have moved on. So bats become a nuisance, not a danger. August and September are typical times to find bats in large part because the young bats are starting to go outside and sometimes lose their way. Where there is one bat, there are likely many more. Butterfly nets worked great for catching and releasing (or testing) bats. Opening doors and windows sometimes worked, sometimes not. And how do you know for sure unless you see the bat fly out?

Tell her to sit outside the house near dusk and watch the house for bats exiting the building. Chimneys and eaves are likely spots, but they can come from much lower also. She may need to do this for several evenings and on all sides. I had a good exterminator who was able to find exit/entrance holes readily, whereas I was not. He had to come out at dark to seal the holes. Bats went out and couldn't come back in.

It occurred to me that your daughter's insurance company may put pressure on the landlord because of the treatment costs incurred. That could increase the costs of deferred maintenance!

jenwen Thank you. Bats are truly wonderful animals and consume flying insects. Colonies are dying from "white nose" virus. We need to be concerned about our diminishing bat, butterfly, and bee colonies. However, as with any wild animal that appears sick or behaves uncharacteristically, do not handle a bat without wearing heavy gloves.

Bats don’t hang around alone! (Hah, see what I did there, and I am unashamed!)

Life on this planet is all interconnected - what is lethal to one species will eventually work its way into any/all others that it can through mutations - in its evolution to be a successful pathogen - and ultimately to people. This may be through our animal food sources, the plants we consume, etc., but if we don’t quit treating Mother Nature so poorly, she can only take the abuse for so long. The show “Life after people” only addresses what she might do when humans are gone, not how we ended up vanishing.

Theresa: b&m, I love that and will file the serial number off of it and use it!

Jenn: It took me years after Jaws came out to want to go in more than ankle deep in the ocean, and I only stayed for the first round of scary music. I also agree with your concern about spreading horrible things throughout our ecosystems.

People, when you are thinking about how bad bats are and how much you wish they'd go away, remember that they eat mosquitoes, ticks and other pests. We'd be overrun with them if we don't protect bats. Then think about Zika and West Nile virus. Our lives and our ecology is nothing but a huge balancing act.

I probably would have used worst words of he didn't pay. Dude gets 5 grand a month for a 50s ranch cut up into 2 apartments and complained about a $75 bill.

Bats aren’t bad, it’s people tromping in to build houses/businesses/infrastructure over the boundaries of their habitat and putting both bats and people at risk - that’s bad. Particularly due to the fact that humans don’t have a good track record for determining/introducing/enforcing best practices and methods of mitigating potential harm caused to animals and plants.

There are 1.5 million bats living under a bridge in urban Austin, TX.

The Austin bats eat 10,000 to 30,000 pounds of insects per night.

They spend 6 months there, then head back to Mexico for the rest of the year.

That is a LOT of insects. :p

Yeah, but what goes in must come out. I can't imagine living in parts of Austin; I've seen the videos.

And..."Contagion" was a movie, not real life.

I've dealt with a bat or two; they're icky, and it's always at night, but they're not The Plague.

...I know, I also was disappointed that the real life Gwyneth Paltrow didn't actually die horrifically, but there's still time! A rally may be organized to protest $300 white t-shirts (when you can get a 3 pack for under $20 at Target), jade 'noni' eggs, and out of touch insufferable Hollywood examples that prove nepotism is alive and well.

Whether or not bats carry pathogens that might cause problems with humans is unsettled, but there's still time for that to be learned! I don't recommend going on any cave explorations and taking the chance that bat guano might contaminate any food/water you might bring with you for the journey though...it might not be the plague (which we actually do have in the US!) but fecal matter contamination is not just gross, it will make you sick!

Jenn, what a cheerful post, especially that last paragraph! ;)

I aim to entertain *and* educate! ;)

Here is the update on my DD's rental adventure. The landlords did consent to have a professional inspection and no indication was found of other bats. She has received her first EOB for the rabies shots and she was glad to see that they were covered without an issue and she won't be stuck with huge bills. It is still an unwanted expense, but manageable.

The issues with the property continue and she has come to the conclusion that it is time to find another place. She has ongoing problems with the door latches and knobs but that is just an irritation, not a deal breaker. As typical for an old house, the outlets are few and far between. In the kitchen, there was a single outlet under the window so she was happy to be able to put her mixer on a cart because it is too tall to fit on the countertop. When she told the landlord that the outlet did not work, they told her that it had not worked for years because it was for the window AC that was removed when central air was installed. Of course, she is being considered difficult because she expected that the outlet would function. The other day, she called to tell them her kitchen ceiling was leaking so they came over and put a bucket under the leak. I don't know whether this water is visible in the upstairs apartment, but there is a real issue if rainwater is coming through a first floor ceiling of a two story house.

The latest issue is the toilet is not functioning. On move in day, I was the first person to use the toilet and it didn't flush correctly. I used the plunger (suspiciously stored right beside the toilet) and then the toilet did flush after that. Since that day, she has had to use the plunger about every other day until yesterday, when even using the plunger was not sufficient. She called the landlord who brought over a snake but he didn't have any luck with that either. So, the landlord poured in drain opener (yikes) and left. Tonight she called for advice and I asked her to go take lots of photos of the basement plumbing. She sent me several photos and I can see tons of rust on the toilet drain and even what appeared to be at least one small hole. There is water on the basement floor around the stack and no other obvious source than the rusty pipe.

Now the landlord is telling her that a clogged toilet is her problem and they have never had problems with the toilet before. She sent them a message quoting the lease portion that says landlord shall perform all repairs necessary for habitability and also said that she would pay the charge if the plumber finds her to be responsible. She said that the work needed to be done by Monday evening or they would need to provide alternative accomodation. Their response was they aren't available until next week and that she should not threaten them.

To make it worse, she picked up a nasty cold last weekend and was too sick to work Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and sounded miserable on the phone tonight. She is very frustrated with their lack of concern and tired of being blamed for the problems that are showing up now that someone is living in the apartment after it has been empty for several months. Mom thinks DD is going to be asking lots of questions about maintenance services and looking closely at the condition before she signs a lease on a new place!

She is worried that she will have to take them to court to break the lease and get her security deposit returned. I told her that they will probably be happy if she wants to leave since they believe she is the source of the problems, not just the messenger.

Thanks for the update. I am glad she is getting the shots as a precaution. This all sounds like a difficult set of issues, but on the positive side I'm sure she has learned a lot, and some day she can view this more charitably as a valuable learning experience.

Yikes! Poor thing. Maybe better off in a different place anyway. It doesn't sound like a safe and healthy place to live. Hopefully with a nice roommate, she could afford something better maintained with a normal landlord.

Bats can take off from a horizontal position. We just had a bat at the cottage and twice we had it under a towel and trying to pick it up with tongues so as not to get bitten - it fly upwards and around the room again - a little damaged, but still flying around.

Where does your daughter live? City/state?

It's best to move and to look at this as a valuable lesson (that's what I tell my son about dating girls, too). It seems to me that if they're too cheap to fix the toilet and keep a tenant, they're too cheap to go to court. If she wants to, she can pay a licensed home inspector to come in and inspect the place. Then she'll be armed if the landlord decides to take the case to court. In the meantime, take pictures, take pictures, take pictures.

Following....

This is a long story so I’ll just get to the end. At a second home that we had left for months, I returned in my own hubby was coming the following weekend. I discovered a colony of bats in the house!! We accidently left a window open for months while we were away.

I panicked as you can imagine. I arrived just before dusk so I went into another part of the house and closed myself off, turned all the lights off opened the front door wide and a few windows including the one the came in from and once because it was starting to get dark they all flew out! One I realized they were gone, closed all the doors and windows problem solved!

This was absolutely horrible as you can imagine but loved seeing the odd one flying about, I love bats and has been said are very beneficial to have around. Think they are also a protected species so illegal to disturb and especially to kill. Those of you that proudly proclaim you did, sorry think that is very sad and have to say pretty disgusting to me. :(

It’s time for her to move back home. Go back to school, get more education, so she could get a better job, and rent a better place in the future.

This is a moderate cost midwestern city...aka dirt cheap to those who live in California or NYC. The landlords tried to sell this house but couldn't find a buyer so decided to rent instead. At the time they pulled it off the market, list price was 70 times gross monthly rent which would look to be a bargain until a potential buyer started adding up the deferrred maintenance costs. I believe that the landlords are not intending to be slumlords but instead are trying to bring in enough income to cover the mortgage and expenses. Unfortunately, they are inexperienced landlords and don't have the contacts and experience to make wise choices about managing a money pit old house. Experienced property owners know that water leaks can cause serious issues if not handled and this one has roof leaks and plumbing issues. Water on the floor around drain pipes is a red flag.

Bats pollinate 500 species of plants which include 300 species of fruit, including guava and agave, so next time you do tequila shots, thank the bats.

I didn’t know that. I thought bats are flying rats.......

Regardless of what your daughter is paying in rent, she should not have to live in these conditions. Please have her google search her city + renters rights or Renter hotline. If this does not work, have her call the code enforcer for her city or county. Kindly and politely, explain what is happening and ask who or what department CAN help you. Ask for names and numbers. It will take calls and patience but you can get help. You are a good Mom for looking out for your daughter. Good luck!

she should just move out and let them use her security deposit for last months rest... they will be glad to get rid of her... I would rather get less rent and have no whining... while some complaints seem valid - its an old house to complain about knobs and latches and then run to mummy and daddy... this landlord needs her like a whole in the head... good luck on a future rental - she will be on the PIA list..

@summersrhythem: Pollinators are so precious, do everything you can to protect them. DS has two honeybee hives.

He calls them his "girls," and they are so sweet!

I lived in a place like this - the roof leaked so I literally had about 3 inches of water in the kitchen - this wasn't a normal leak but an enclosed patio with glass roof; the fuses blew regularly which turned off the refrigerator and the circuit breaker was in my landlady's unit so I had to wait for her to fix; a window fell out when I opened it and she blamed me; the unit seemed to be a direct line of path for some huge bees that would regularly zoom through. When my father visited, his first comment was that the exterior wood was suffering from dry rot :-)

I was young and naive when I rented it as it was an old Spanish Colonia in the Hollywood Hills and so the interior seemed gorgeous on its face - huge living room; Art Deco bathroom etc.

I gave her notice - only stayed there a few months. I used the last month's security for rent and she never came after me. I can't say a landlord wouldn't attempt to enforce a lease so with notice of vacating I would provide a list of issues including the medical problems. Perhaps you could sue the landlord for pain and suffering and medical costs.

I was just like your daughter and loved old historic homes with charm. After becoming very ill from toxic mold exposure I now rent a clean modern apartment and look at pictures of charming historic homes on Pinterest and Instagram. It works much better this way.

What the landlord does with his property isn't your problem once your daughter has moved out, but IMO every inexperienced landlord (and many experienced ones) should at least look into professional property management. The cost is usually reasonable. Typically you pay a tenant acquisition fee and a percentage of the monthly rent.

A good manager has the contacts to handle maintenance and legal issues properly, promptly, and at reasonable cost.

As with anything, not all property managers are equal and you may have to try a few before you find the right one. When you're interviewing potential managers, make sure they understand how you want your units maintained. Check the BBB. Try to find out how long their tenants stay on average. Visit their office and try to get a sense for how they treat tenants -- it matters.

Sure, you pay, but what a good manager can save you on maintenance costs offsets part of his or her fees. Also, you never have to take a call at 3am because the tenant's furnace has quit working and he just woke up to a cold house. Since you don't deal with the tenants directly, you have fewer worries about accidentally saying or doing something that will get you in legal trouble. Also, when tenant issues get to the unpleasantness of eviction, you don't have to be the bad guy.

Property managers aren’t cheap. Over here they take one month rent for finding renters, then 20% of the rent each month, that’s a lot of money to many landlords, not everyone could afford that service. A few landlords I know they aren’t making any money out of renting, rental income just helps a little with their mortgage or property tax expenses.

DavidR, are you a property manager?? :-)

The plumber came this afternoon. He told her it is common for properties that have set empty for many months to have this type of problem and there was no obvious item clogging the toilet, just a pipe filled with gunk and sludge. Unfortunately, she had to leave before the plumber finished to go to a doctor's appt and the plumber said he would lock up when he left. She got home from work and could not get the door open. She had never used the doorknob lock as she locks the deadbolt from the outside when she leaves. It does not make sense to me, but it is possible the two locks are keyed differently. Yes, she should have tested that she had the key to the doorknob and was able to unlock that lock, even if she did not plan to use it. (She wont make that mistake again!) However, the landlord should also have checked the locks and keys when she accepted the payment, so they both share responsibility for that snafu. DD is so frustrated and irritated with the whole situation that I told her to just leave for her weekend trip and take a couple days away from the situation.

She has her undergraduate degree and has chosen to take a position working for the government. In the future, she will move up the pay scale and be able to move up the housing scale as well. Until then, she has to decide what compromises she is willing to make to find housing that fits within her budget. After she left the dorm, she has lived in newer purpose built apartment buildings, during her university years and for her first year on the job. This is her first experience finding her own place and living by herself and it has been quite an adventure. Her father and I have always lived in an older house but it is an expensively built, higher end property in an upscale neighborhood so she has had a skewed view of older housing. This property is an ordinary older working class house, remuddled into two apartments and in dire need of some TLC.

I have no doubt that these owners have decided she is a problem tenant and I do sympathize with them for all the calls they have gotten from her. I have some rental properties and I know that I hate these types of calls so I try to make sure everything is in good condition when the lease is signed and avoid the junk calls. Preparing the property for rent is more than just fresh paint, it is also fix holes in walls, ceilings, and floors, test and repair appliances, test plumbing and fix drips and leaks, adjust doors, check keys, check smoke and co detectors and that is just for the interior. These people would have avoided most all of her calls if they had been diligent with preparing the place for rental.

DD has left a message with the city rental license office and is waiting to find out whether the landlords have had the property licensed and inspected.

> DavidR, are you a property manager?? :-)

Good grief, no. That's not a job I'd ever want.

Wow, 20% fees. Ouch. I've never paid that for management. The most was 11%. I guess I must be lucky.

> DD has left a message with the city rental license office......

If the landlord had been reasonable and responsive, he/she probably wouldn't have had to worry about getting nailed.

The city rental office most likely more focused on situations that are truly code issues... like illegal sublets, illegal bedrooms, blocked egress, bedbug infestation in multi-unit buildings, housing for homeless families versus a spoiled adult child who is upset because the locks don't match, an outlet doesn't work, a bat flew in the house and a toilet drained slowly but is now repaired. Do the landlord a favor and move. If it were me and state law allowed I would issue a notice to vacate the monent she is an hour late with rent.

I have a feeling Jane is a LL. My patience would be a little short after having to get rabies shots because of bat in house. Maybe the door lock is kind of the last straw. Was she on her way to Doctor for another rabies shot? Maybe LL doesn't have a CO for the rental unit and she's calling to find that out.

Jane, she's not spoiled! She's paying rent for a safe, bat-free place to live with a toilet that flushes. She's not complaining because she doesn't like the color of the carpet or that the countertops in her kitchen are granite and not quartz or marble. Maybe the city rental office is too busy to look into her issue but they may be able to give her some advice or information. I'd recommend that she pick the brain of anyone she can about this situation. Knowledge is power.

Here is the Cliff Notes version of the last few days. DD just left town Friday evening without her clothes and headed out to see us. I have been talking with her about the situation and her frustrations with not being taken seriously

Friday morning, I had left a message with the city inquiring about the license and they returned my call first thing Momday morning. They checked and the property is currently licensed. I asked the admin person a couple questions and she said they would send an inspector to check it out. I politely thanked her and said that my daughter needs to determine the next action and she would contact them if she wanted to go down that pathway. Independently from me, my daughter decided to stop in at city hall over her lunch break. She set up an inspection for this morning. I had a long chat with her and gave her my perspective that an independent third party is a reasonable choice, given that the landlord has been trivializing her concerns and blaming her for the issues.

This morning, the inspector came over for an informal inspection. He found several issues of concern. He wasnt thrilled with the side door that would not open or the front door that required multiple movements and lots of muscle power to get it to budge. He didn't like the 21 inch wide chokepoint that splits the apartment into two portions or the back door thst didn't open to 90 degrees but said that was allowable for an old house.

He found only 1 outlet in the entire apartment that was up to code which was the recently added gfci in the bathroom. The kktchen GFCI did not trip correctly and none of the other outlets were grounded. She asked about the nonworking outlet and he said that wasnt a big issue as they were already being cited for the electrical system. I took that to mean they will have to bring it up to code so there will be plenty of outlets then.

One of her smoke detectors didn't work and another one was repeatedly beeping and there wasn't a smoke or carbon monoxide detector in the basement anywhere. He also had issues with the laundry area venting.

He asked her about the landlord and she truthfully said they had given her lots of hassle about the toilet. At that point, the inspector said he found enough serious health and safety issues that he was going to call the landlord.

Tonight DD received a text msg informing her that they were planning to list the house for sale.

Your DD is renting a apartment in a low cost living area, that means families there have low incomes, the landlord can't afford all the repairs, and your DD can't afford an expensive apartment........ no one is happy at the end, the landlord has to sell the place, your DD loses a place to stay. Since you're a landlord yourself, you could use a part of your rental income to help your DD rent a better place, soon she will be homeless.......

One of my friends goes to European countries all the time, she told me Americans are angry, angry at each other; Europeans are kind and friendly to each other. I hope we shall learn one day on how to be nice to each other, how to understand each other better without any harm.

The problem here is more a landlord issue than the property. DD is somewhat realistic about her budget and recognizing that there are issues with any property, especially one that includes outdoor space at her price point. The problem is the landlord is attacking her personally for bringing up issues and blaming her for things that she is not causing. The key problem turned out that the key was the correct key for the lock but the lock was not installed correctly. If the door was open, the key turned just fine. But, because the lock was crooked, when the knob was turned and the door pulled shut, the mechanism was wedged against something and the key would not turn. DD thought perhaps there was some trick she just didn't know so asked a colleague to attempt to open the lock and he couldn't make it happen either.
If the landlord would simply acknowledge the issue was a problem with the house and fix it, DD would be fine with her. She is just tired of all the attention focused on who can be blamed and not concerned with how to address the problem. Things break, get lost, get old, or just slowly disintegrate and that is the natural course.

It's hard to solve problems and move forward when the people you're working with are focused only on placing blame or making excuses. It seems from what you wrote that now she's looking for another home. I'd chalk this all up to a good learning experience. I think it's wonderful that the city was so responsive.

Well this is a reluctant landlord who cannot repair or maintain the property. Are they are going to put it on the market as is with the tenants in place? Doesn't sound like it will sell quickly with the code violations, low rents and poor conditions. Does DD stay there and allow her unit to be shown to prospective buyers? I'd have a problem with strangers touring my space when I wasn't there. Its probably time to look for alternative housing.

Document every little last problem your daughter has had in that unit, and every interaction she had with her landlord. Get a copy of the inspectors reports, both the bat inspector and the city's.

You need all this in case your daughter gets taken to court.

Gather this all now when your memory is fresh and these people still are at their jobs, who knows when court will be.

Actually, let your daughter do this work.

This will be a valuable life lesson for her to carefully inspect every little thing when she moves into a place, and add a codicil to the lease that she wants and additional three days or something like that for additional inspection and a further list of problems noted will be gone over with to the manager and cosigned and only then will the lease be valid.

I love that idea for the lease addendum to give the tenant a sufficient opportunity to actually look at the condition and document the existing problems. My daughter has a ton of photos of the place and a comparable number of texts too. I think she got tired of me asking whether she had a photo of whatever she was asking about, so now she takes the photo first. This has been a learning experience for her and I know she will be much more careful to check the condition carefully and ask more questions before signing anything.

She has been calling for advice and just to vent since the landlord has been downplaying all the problems and blaming her. I have suggested that she remind herself that the objective is to have comfortable, safe and affordable housing and to try to remain positive and professional. She has probably done better than I would...30 years ago I would probably have been meek but now, I would be much more blunt with some colorful language and likely some extra volume too.

Another piece of advice to pass on to your daughter-
At this stage in her life she really might be better off in an apartment building that either has a building manager to handle things.
When one lives in an individual unit owned by a landlord the way your daughter did, it’s catch as catch can whether or not the landlord is responsive, and how is a prospective tenant to know? It’s not as if the landlord will give references. When it comes time for repairs, will the owner promise to be there with the workman every minute, or will your daughter have to take off work every time to protect her belongings? Or worse, in an effort to save money will the owner try to fix the problem himself and not be able to, and then have to bring in a workman anyway, so now your daughter will have taken off 2 days of work!!
In an apartment building, the manager would be there to supervise workman.
I have been through all this myself.
A cute little house with a yard sounds nice, but the reality is far less bucolic.
A small efficiency apartment in a well- maintained building with a live- in manager and a management company in addition so that the landlord doesn’t need to be contacted for every repair is the best option for a busy young professional at the beginning of her career.
And she’ll meet some other young professionals in an apartment building and that is good for her, to have someone right there. Sure you can have friends at work, but nothing beats a neighbor!
People nowadays want gorgeous furnishings right out of the gate, but it’s just fine to have bookshelves made out of wooden boards and cinder blocks and a desk made out of a door on saw horses.
To live in a clean, functioning, efficient, safe, stress-free place is priceless!!

Another piece of advice to pass on to your daughter-
At this stage in her life she really might be better off in an apartment building that either has a building manager to handle things.
When one lives in an individual unit owned by a landlord the way your daughter did, it’s catch as catch can whether or not the landlord is responsive, and how is a prospective tenant to know? It’s not as if the landlord will give references. When it comes time for repairs, will the owner promise to be there with the workman every minute, or will your daughter have to take off work every time to protect her belongings? Or worse, in an effort to save money will the owner try to fix the problem himself and not be able to, and then have to bring in a workman anyway, so now your daughter will have taken off 2 days of work!!
In an apartment building, the manager would be there to supervise workman.
I have been through all this myself.
A cute little house with a yard sounds nice, but the reality is far less bucolic.
A small efficiency apartment in a well- maintained building with a live- in manager and a management company in addition so that the landlord doesn’t need to be contacted for every repair is the best option for a busy young professional at the beginning of her career.
And she’ll meet some other young professionals in an apartment building and that is good for her, to have someone right there. Sure you can have friends at work, but nothing beats a neighbor!
People nowadays want gorgeous furnishings right out of the gate, but it’s just fine to have bookshelves made out of wooden boards and cinder blocks and a desk made out of a door on saw horses.
To live in a clean, functioning, efficient, safe, stress-free place is priceless!!

Please post an update when your daughter has found a new rental.

Thanks for the update. One thing that came to mind is that maybe your daughter should buy a $4 circuit tester to take with her when she views houses. And suggest that she flush the toilet several times to see how it works. Good luck to her!