Bat Uninvited Guest In Governor’s House Critters May Force Washington Governor To Move Family Out

Bats still are haunting the governor’s mansion, and the first family may have to move while exterminators get rid of the critters.

On Wednesday - more than two months after Gov. Gary Locke, his wife, Mona, and their infant daughter, Emily, got rabies shots as a precaution after their first encounter with bats - the governor discovered yet another bat in a guest bedroom, said Helen Chung, a deputy press secretary.

It was the third sighting this month and the seventh since February, when the Lockes first spied a bat inside the house. Mansion staffers have caught three bats, including the one Locke saw Wednesday night. The first two tested negative for rabies; results were not available on the third, Chung said.

General Administration workers and a pest control company “are reviewing their options for permanently securing the home from bats,” Chung said.

“It is possible that they (the Lockes) will move out of the house for a short period of time,” she said.

Workers used a crane Thursday to patch openings in the eaves that bats might be using to enter the three-story mansion, perched on a bluff just west of the Capitol.