Bats and Snakes: A story about deferred maintenance

[Collin Hays]

Several years ago, we had a cabin on our program that had some rot around the base of the chimney chase.  You could see openings in the chase where it meets the roof from the ground.  We advised the owner that it needed a new chimney chase. It was going to cost a few thousand dollars.  The owner declined and told us he would take care of it.

In late June of that year, a guest discovered a bat flying around in the basement.  We assumed that it perhaps just came in a door that was open all day (or night).  The next day, there were two more bats in the basement.  Then a large snake in the laundry room.  Obviously we took the cabin off market to figure out what was going on.

What was going on was, in a few short months, the chimney chase had become a bat house, and there were hundreds of bats taking up residence there.  They had somehow made their way into the floor space between the upper level of the home and the basement as well.  And the snakes.  The snakes were feasting on the bats, so there were a lot of quite fat and happy snakes in and around.

Well, this is easy, call an exterminator!  Not so fast...we found out it is illegal to touch a bat during their nesting season, and fines can be huge. Nothing could be done for several months.  So the cabin would have to sit several months to wait out the situation.  Once we were able to address the situation, we took apart the chase and part of the roof, to discover HUNDREDS of bats, and their excrement, throughout the chase and crawl space.  Guys, this is really gross stuff.

All total, I estimate that the homeowner lost about $30,000 from this.  Yes, we got it all back together, but how easy would it have been to repair the rotted chase for a couple thousand dollars?  In the Short Term Rental world, deferred maintenance will chase you down very quickly.  

Good day!

[Andrew Steffens]

I am at the point of cutting clients who refuse to maintain their homes.