Bats Force Governor’s Family Out Of Mansion Lockes Will Stay Elsewhere While Workers Try To Evict Rodents

On the day the new Batman movie opened nationally, Washington’s first family moved out of their own Bat Cave - the bat-ridden governor’s mansion.

Gov. Gary Locke, his wife, Mona, and their infant daughter, Emily, packed up Friday and moved out after enduring three days of intensive bat-sightings in the three-story Georgian-style mansion next door to the state Capitol.

They’ll live in an undisclosed private home in Olympia for at least four days while workers try to seal off all possible entrances to the mansion - and make sure no bats are trapped inside, deputy press secretary Chris Thompson said.

Ironically, it was the workers’ efforts to bat-proof the house that caused the latest round of anxiety-producing bat-sightings, he said. As holes and vents were plugged, bats trying to leave found they couldn’t get out the way they came in, so they flew around the house, he said.

Four bats were captured inside the mansion this week, including one Friday morning and one Thursday night. That brought to nine the number of bats sighted since February. Several have been captured. The first two tested negative for rabies and results were not available on the two latest critters.

Security officers have counted about a dozen bats flying around the eaves of the house, which sits on a wooded bluff overlooking Puget Sound and Capitol Lake.