Last bats evicted from North Whidbey home

Standing in front of the pier at Cranberry Lake on North Whidbey, Meg Lunnum scooped up a lazy bat that wouldn’t get out of its fabric cage. The bat screeched angrily, biting the rehabilitator’s gloved hand with its tiny teeth as she gently scolded it.

Lunnum placed the bat on top of the cage as a small group of people waited for it to fly free into the dusky sky over Deception Pass State Park. As it finally flew away, Tom Riecken hoped to never see the little critter again.

Less than a year ago, Riecken moved with his wife and 5-month-old son into the home of their dreams, a Victorian-style house located near Deception Pass State Park. The bliss was short-lived as the family discovered the presence of over 1,000 bats filling their walls with thousands of gallons of poop, prompting the Island County Health Department to issue an imminent health hazard warning for histoplasmosis, an infectious disease.

After the Whidbey News-Times reported the unhappy discovery, the infestation made regional headlines. Next week, the family will share their story with The Washington Post, according to Riecken.

Though the bats forced the family to move out and cost them thousands of dollars in medical expenses and remediation work, on top of a lot of time and effort to make the house habitable, Riecken has no hard feelings towards them.

In fact, since they moved out, Riecken and his wife Mackenzie Powell have been doing their best to ensure the bats can live happily as neighbors rather than roommates, waiting for them to leave the home before sealing the walls and doing sanitation work.

As hundreds of little brown bats left to hibernate in their winter roost, a handful of their cousins — known as big brown bats — stayed inside the walls.

One time, Riecken was listening to heavy metal music while doing some work on the house. Suddenly, he realized the screams weren’t part of the song but were coming from a big brown bat he suspects he had accidentally stepped on. Another bat fell on Powell, who Riecken recalled screaming in absolute horror.

Eventually, the couple found seven bats and, after trapping them in a Home Depot bin, they entrusted Lunnum with their safety. Lunnum is the executive director of Happy Valley Bats, a nonprofit that rescues and rehabilitates bats.

After months in Lunnum’s care at her ranch near Stanwood, it was time for the five females and two males to spread their wings and join their family and friends in the park.

To recognize them in case they returned to Riecken’s house, Lunnum painted some marks on the bats’ bodies using green tattoo ink, which is non-toxic.

As the bats — all named after characters from vampire fiction such as Bella from “Twilight” — flew away one by one, Riecken said he felt a somewhat paternal sense of pride.

“I feel like I’m their caretaker at this point,” Riecken said. “I feel like my wife and I have been charged with the health and prosperity of the bats of Whidbey Island.”

Riecken and Powell hope their neighbors will install bat houses on their properties and believe more people on Whidbey should do the same, as bat infestations can happen in any house that is not 100% sealed.

Currently, the couple keeps some bat boxes at the house, which will provide bats a safe and cozy alternative to the walls of a home. The boxes can have up to four chambers and may look like skinny doll houses with no windows, or rockets.

Upon learning about Riecken and Powell’s bat problem, a Girl Scout named Amber Nearing built about 40 bat boxes, which might be installed in the neighborhood, Riecken said.

Additionally, Washington State Parks is building its own bat houses, which are planned to be installed next week at Deception Pass State Park.

Community members who are interested in getting a box for their own property can reach out to Riecken and Powell at batandbreakfast@gmail.com.

Kurt License, a wildlife biologist at the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, said the ideal bat house needs to be warm and located near a water source to allow the bats to stay hydrated. Additionally, the boxes must be installed 12 feet off the ground and at least 20 feet away from branches, where predators like cats and owls may hide.

License praised Riecken and Powell for humanely getting rid of the bats, which many homeowners would have exterminated or removed without providing an alternative habitat to help them.

License and Lunnum advise the public to avoid touching bats if they find one on the ground. Instead, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife recommends using thick gloves and a shovel or box to handle them. People can also report groups of bats and sick, injured or dead bats to the agency by searching “Living with wildlife: Bats” on the agency’s website.

Though only 1% of bats in the wild are assumed to have rabies, the risk of encountering a bat with infectious diseases cannot be underestimated.

It’s been a tough year for the family of three. In August, the Whidbey News-Times reported that the family had to make frequent visits to the emergency room due to the exposure to the bats. Before sealing the deal, Riecken and Powell hired a professional inspector who only found some signs of rodent activity that seemed like nothing out of the ordinary. It was only a few months after they moved in that they began to hear screeching and had the first bat encounters in the home.

After moving back to King County, Riecken and Powell would drive to the house to fix it up, as hiring contractors to do all of the work would have cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars. They have been helped by family, friends and some contractors, which Riecken said made the costs manageable.

Riecken, who works remotely, has recently been able to temporarily move to the house while Powell takes care of Robert, who is now 1 year old.

Behind the drywall, Riecken found what he described as a “lasagna of death” — a solid block with layers and layers of dead bats at different stages of decomposition — and “bricks” of guano that had piled up for what he believes it’s been decades of infestation.

To make sure he doesn’t contaminate the rest of the house or himself, Riecken wears protective gear and has a pair of shoes he wears in the contaminated rooms only. However, gross accidents happen.

“It’s a little squeamish to take down a piece of your wall and get absolutely showered in bat poop,” he said.

Reese Cernick has owned Whidbey Pest Control, a family owned pest control company, for about a decade.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” he said, adding that other pest control companies he’s talked to have said the same.

Cernick believes he’s removed 100 gallons of guano bricks and chunks, which “you can drop to the ground and it stays intact.”

Riecken estimates they have removed over 2,000 gallons of poop, if not more, part of which have been used by some farmers to fertilize their crops.

In a few weeks, the removal of guano and the contaminated drywall will be completed. After that, Riecken said, a fungicide will be applied to the walls. Reconstruction is expected to begin in September, unless the bats find their way inside.

Eventually, the family might be able to move back into the house and welcome visitors to the “Bat & Breakfast.”

Last year, Riecken and Powell launched “Bat & Breakfast,” a Kickstarter offering contributors the opportunity to sojourn at the house for a few nights. After sharing their story with the Whidbey News-Times and other media outlets, the family gained enough support to cover the cost of their rabies shots, which they are grateful for.

Now, Riecken and Powell look forward to moving back to the island, where they can give their son a happy childhood.

After Riecken bid adieu to the bats, he drove back to the house. And there one was, angrily trying to get inside and claim its right to the insides of the walls.

Though he couldn’t tell if it had the green marking, Riecken knows a big brown bat when he sees one.

Note: Riecken and Powell put together a video with photos and clips documenting the infestation and their clean up efforts to date, which is available here.

Bat rehabilitator Meg Lunnum holds a big brown bat. All of the seven bats released at Deception Pass Sate Park were painted with green tattoo ink to recognize them in case they returned to Tom Riecken’s house. (Photo by Luisa Loi)

Bat Rehabilitator Meg Lunnum holds a bat before releasing it by Cranberry Lake. The bat is one of seven big brown bats that infested the home of Tom Riecken and his wife Mackenzie Powell. (Photo by Luisa Loi)