ASHLAND — Two weeks ago, I wrote I believed bobcats and people could peacefully co-exist in my Ashland neighborhood. I don’t feel the same way about bats.

Don’t get me wrong: I personally have no strong feelings about bats, one way or another. While I think they are a bit creepy and somewhat scary when they are flying around, I think that is mostly because of the “bad press” bats have gotten in popular literature and in many horror movies.

And I have read and heard so many stories about rabid bats I fear getting rabies by just have a bat spit (or worse) on me while hiking in Carter Caves. While I have been in caves with hundreds of bats within a few feet of me and I have never had one spit on me, the possibility still gives me the creeps.

I also know the many positive things bats do. I have been told no other living creatures consume more bugs than bats, and having a few bats living nearby will greatly reduce the number of mosquitoes, spiders and other insects that plague your yard.

That being said, I don’t mind if a few bats decide to live in my neighborhood along with the bobcat and deer. I just don’t want a bat as a roommate, and too many times in the 33 years that we have lived in Ashland bats have tried to take up residence inside the house.

It has happened so often I must confess I am getting rather good at capturing the bats and releasing them unharmed outside. In the early years, most of my encounters with bats inside the house ended with one dead bat. I don’t enjoy killing things, even bats that are flying round in the house. That’s why I don’t hunt or fish and why I try to negotiate a peaceful settlement to my encounters with bats.

 This is the latest chapter in the Cannon bat chronicles, and sadly after successfully capturing the last four bats in a grocery bag and releasing them outside, I was a complete failure in the latest encounter. In fact, I slept through the entire ordeal.

 My daughter and two granddaughters have spent the last three months living with us. While my daughter and almost 3-year-old granddaughter slept in the basement, the older granddaughter, 16, slept in the bedroom just down the hall from the room where my wife and I share a bed.

Friday was a tiring day. After spending about 10 hours at work, I accompanied by wife to the Boyd County Fair to see the ZOOperstars and hear the gospel music led by the Primitive Quartet.

After returning home, I watched the end of the Reds’ victory over the Colorado Rockies in Denver. After the game, I leaned back in the recliner where I sometimes sleep when my back is sore, as it was Friday. I was soon soundly sleeping.

Sometime during the night, my granddaughter ran out of her room terrified. A bat was flying around above her bed, she said.

My wife told her to go get me and I would get the creature to fly into a sack and take it outside.

That was a good plan except that neither my granddaughter nor my wife were able to get me awake. The next morning they both recalled the conversations they had with me, but I have absolutely no memory of waking up. I may have been talking but I was never awake.

Unable to waken her grandfather, my granddaughter opened the windows to her bedroom and tightly closed the door, hoping the bat would exit the house on its own. When I awoke Saturday morning, my granddaughter was sleeping on the couch just a few feet from me. Not remembering anything about the bat, I assumed she had moved to the couch because her room was too hot.

 We never found the bat. I searched the room the next day without finding any evidence of bat activity. We concluded the bat had flown out the open window.

Meanwhile, my daughter and two granddaughters moved into their new house Saturday where they plan to stay until my granddaughter graduates from Paul G. Blazer High School in the spring of 2014. Then my daughter and youngest grandchild plan to join my son-in-law who is working in the oil fields in North Dakota.

Our house was built in 1923, and like many big, old houses, it has a number of places that enable bats to get into the attic. All efforts to keep the bats out have failed, and I suspect we will have more bats in the house in the coming years.

The bats in the house no longer frighten me, but they will never, ever be welcome. They may be harmless, but they are still creepy. Just ask my granddaughter. She may never again sleep in her grandparents’ home.

JOHN CANNON can be reached at jcannon@dailyindependent.

com or at (606) 326-2649.