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December 2, 2007

Rats, bats and a nasty spider

By DR. A.B. deGRANDPRE

Because of my current advanced age and the presence of seven of my eight sons and daughters residing nearby, they have each graciously volunteered to devote the better part of a day once a week to be with their progenitor.

All was progressing superbly until one of those tiny but potentially disease-producing monsters, a bat, appeared in the bedroom next to mine. Extensive publicity has made the public aware -- perhaps too aware -- of the dangers presented by these winged mammals, in some cases producing an aura of near hysteria.

One of our family friends who discovered at least two bats flying around her old homestead couldn't recall a specific bite, but she did wake up in the morning to find a scratch on her chest, possibly from a fingernail or a bat that was flying in her bedroom while she slept. She decided to undergo the therapeutic anti-rabies regime (a series of subcutaneous injections of anti-rabies vaccine).

In the situation at our home, an expert from Tupper Lake was summoned. He quickly allayed our fears and determined the likely method of entrance to the house was via an open flue in the chimney, and that the means of exit was most probably by way of the same route.

Several months ago while asleep, I was awakened by a severe stinging pain in my left foot followed by the presence of a modest flow of blood. One of my sons, using tweezers, removed what appeared to be several tiny black legs. It was decided that a spider, an arachnid, was the villain. An extensive local inflammatory reaction ensued, requiring curettage and edge debridement. Final healing took about six months, and the area of the bite is still to this day quite sensitive to touch. I have been told that there is a brown toxic spider that may have been my attacker.

Two other stories deserve sharing from when the family resided on Margaret Street. One has to do with a nest of wasps busily flying into an aperture in the outer north wall of our home. The hole was round and about the size of a cork for a large bottle. I was guilty of plugging up the hole, the idea being to entrap the nest of wasps securely within the walls and thus terminate the problem. Never did I realize that the little monsters could find their way into the house itself. Now that their means of egress had been corked, the problem of getting rid of them was worse than ever, and the house was thoroughly inundated with them.

My final recollection pertaining to pests has to do with large, ugly sewer rats, by far the worst of our family predator stories. A small leak at the base of our toilet in our basement preceded the debacle. A plumber was called, an employee in whom we had great confidence. He proceeded to remove a bit of flooring immediately adjacent to the toilet; never did he or we realize that this provided a direct line of communication with our main sewer line. In the rats came, and all but one of the intruders was confined to the basement and taken care of by the plumber with carefully measured blows from a hammer.

The one escapee managed to find its way into our sleeping area and settled into one of the children's bedrooms. This worried all the children save one of our oldest, who promptly put on his cowboy suit, his John Wayne hat, a patch over one eye and grabbed his trusty BB gun.

Believe it or not, this one-man safari was successful, and his trophy was promptly interred.

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