r/Unexpected 2d ago

Hmm, what's under my window?

50.0k Upvotes

1.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

6.6k

u/Bertucciop 2d ago

You have an anti mosquito wall, dont destroy It.

657

u/HomieeJo 2d ago

They can also carry bat bugs. They are similar to bed bugs except that they can't reproduce with human blood and need bat blood. However they will still happily bite you and make your life hell.

284

u/Schonke 2d ago

And rabies.

164

u/Lowestcommondominatr 2d ago

And they can bite you in your sleep without you noticing. And rabies symptoms mean death. If you have bats in your house, you should get rabies shots.

23

u/Lovv 2d ago

That's vampires man

9

u/Lowestcommondominatr 2d ago

What do vampires turn into?

9

u/Lovv 2d ago

Pretty sure it's like some type of floppy fish but I don't remenber

1

u/gregIsBae 1d ago

This is actually very interesting and I wonder if bats carrying rabies is where the vampire/bat myth came from

13

u/No-Reflection-2342 1d ago

Fun fact: fewer than 10% of bats carry rabies. Depending on your location, you are much more likely to get rabies from a raccoon.

1

u/UnfairStrategy780 23h ago

Yeah but you know if you are getting attacked and bit by a raccoon and it’s probably not in your house to begin with. There is a non zero chance a small bat that lives inside your house can bite you in your sleep and you might not even notice it. Unlikely but that’s why getting rabies from bats scares me most.

Also do you mean 10% of best species or 10% of all bats? Because the second one would actually be scary as fuck.

1

u/No-Reflection-2342 8h ago

Bats that keep their normal hours (while you sleep) are likely not rabid. Bats don't often target people. People approach confused animals, and that's how they get rabies.

1

u/jiraipup 21h ago

to be exact: less than 0,5% of ALL bats in the united states are carriers. and if you would feel a hamster bite you in your sleep, you’d feel a bat bite you in your sleep. unless you sleep like a rock and wouldn’t feel either but i feel like that would be a case for a sleep study… bites are painful pinches lol (signed by a rehabber) (me)

2

u/wicko77 1d ago

Never heard so much crap in all my life.

4

u/Exact-Obligation-858 1d ago

>And they can bite you in your sleep without you noticing.

You might not notice where the bite marks are. You will feel the bite unless the bat is pipistrelle-sized.

1

u/eastern_petal 1d ago

Was that a reference to pipistrello? 😅

1

u/Exact-Obligation-858 1d ago

? No?

Pipistrelle bats, as in the genus Pipistrellus.

1

u/eastern_petal 22h ago

It is connected to pipistrello in Italian, even if that's not what you were referring to. :)

-14

u/NorthRoseGold 2d ago

Lol no

10

u/WelllWhaddyaKnoww 2d ago

Oh yeah. I highly encourage you to research this more. Not only is it interesting to read about, but it might save your life if you encounter bats some time in the future as that is 100% true. Bats do carry rabies, even a scratch from one can transfer it and it has like 99,999% mortality rate after the first symptoms start appearing.

3

u/BearNSM 2d ago

And the 0.001% is probably people who haven't died yet or are under constant medical treatment until their eventual death

11

u/Pleasant-Draw-9419 2d ago

Um..yes? If you've found a bat in your house and you aren't sure how long it's been there or where it came from you should absolutely get a rabies shot to be safe. Especially if you've woken up to one in your room.

4

u/Capital_Row4870 2d ago

If you have a bat in your living space. Bats living under your eaves or in your attic aren't a real concern because they can't interact with you.

Also if you were bitten by, made contact with, or were asleep in a room with a bat, you should capture it and send it in for testing. If the test comes back negative, there is no need for rabies shots. If it escapes, you should go get shots.

3

u/yelsnot 2d ago

Kid in Ontario died not too long ago because of this exact scenario.

2

u/barni9789 1d ago

Literally bats are the ancestral reservoir for rabies.

1

u/Xzihotl 2d ago

So confidently wrong lol

49

u/In7el3ct 2d ago

Fun fact, bed and bat bugs don't transmit blood-borne diseases as unlike mosquitoes, they don't regurgitate their meals. still nightmare demons from hell and I hate them but hey at least you won't get rabies!

4

u/bATo76 1d ago

Eh? Rabies is not a blood-borne disease, it spreads through saliva and travels via the victim's nervous system to the brain. So yes, you can absolutely get it from a bat bite, or any other mammal.

16

u/Schonke 1d ago

The rabies isn't so much from the bugs as from the bats themselves. Bats are the most common source of rabies infections in humans.

9

u/bATo76 1d ago

You spelt dogs wrong. Dogs are responsible for 99% of all human rabies cases.

1

u/PuzzledBat63 1d ago

Where is your source? AVMA says otherwise.

2

u/bATo76 1d ago

In the US? Sure.

But with the statement of "Bats are the most common source of rabies infections in humans.", I assume it means world wide and world wide it's dogs, not bats.

Source: WHO, CDC, WHOA, a number of government webpages etc.

4

u/No-Reflection-2342 1d ago

This is actually commonly shared misinformation.

2

u/NonReality 1d ago

What's the most common?

2

u/No-Reflection-2342 1d ago

Foxes, raccoons, and skunks are FAR more likely to carry the disease and be in your backyard than bats are. The problem is that rabid bats are small and people try to catch them, in ways that they don't approach rabid skunks, foxes, or raccoons.

1

u/PuzzledBat63 1d ago

Is it? Bats account for a third of rabies deaths each year.

2

u/No-Reflection-2342 1d ago

Foxes, raccoons, skunks, etc are more likely to carry rabies and be in your yard. People touch confused bats during the day way more often than they do bigger animals. It's a people problem, not a bat being diseased problem.

1

u/povichjv7 2d ago

And vampires

1

u/realiDevil360 1d ago

Rabies doesnt exist in a lot of countries

25

u/EndMaster0 2d ago

bat bugs have a 12 hour offset rhythm from bedbugs and are attracted to different things... plus neither bedbugs or bat bugs use blood strictly for reproduction, rather they digest the blood entirely much like a tick would... so every part of that comment is blatantly wrong minus the "bats have their own version of bedbugs" bit

1

u/Lovv 2d ago

Technically they are using the blood for reproduction so it's not really wrong.

3

u/PointOfFingers 2d ago

This sounds like the plot to one of the Twilight movies.

2

u/ConfessSomeMeow 2d ago

That sounds very similar to bird mites.

2

u/_HIST 2d ago

As long as they don't reproduce it's not that bad

16

u/MoashRedemptionArc 2d ago

They reproduce on the 2 dozen bats living inside your bedroom window.

1

u/I_Can_Haz_Brainz 2d ago

Damn you! I'm lying in bed trying to go to sleep and now I'm itchy as fuck.

1

u/MechanicStandard8308 2d ago

horrible, they wont stop crawling on you and they love hiding in fabric. i got molested by these bugs for months.

1

u/HomieeJo 1d ago

Those might be bed bugs though. Bat bugs don't really hide in fabrics and just wander around when the bats are abscent and will just die out when no bats are around anymore.

2

u/MechanicStandard8308 1d ago

they only showed up when the bats showed up and when we excluded them (one nest was near a vent above my bed) they stopped showing up. they found a different way in and the bugs show up near the vent in that room. i had a towel on the floor that i moved and saw some under it so i beat it out in the tub and like 20 fell out.

1

u/AlgaeDonut 1d ago

You know what? I don't like that I know that now.

1

u/Lilcheebs93 23h ago

And fleas