WHIDBEY ISLAND, Wash. (KIRO) – Halloween may be over but one couple in Washington state was recently living in a real-life horror story.
Their dream home on Whidbey Island was infested with “thousands of bats.”
The couple said they did not know about the bats and the home passed the inspection when they bought it.
“All of these internal walls had dead bats. They were piled up maybe somewhere between four to six inches for each one of these frames themselves,” Tom Riecken said,
Riecken and Mackenzie Powell bought their dream house not knowing that dream would quickly turn into a horror story.
“My stomach, like everything dropped,” Powell said.
The couple said their attic walls were filled with thousands of bats and they captured a video of bats flying out of their home.
“The anxiety attacks from thinking about what if my baby got scratched and is going to die from rabies. It broke my heart,” Powell said.
The bats flew away during the winter and came back in the summer.
The couple said the house inspection passed in February.
“I felt so angry. I felt tricked,” Powell said.
The couple said the home was passed on to the previous owner in a will and he knew about the bats but when he sold it to them, he did not disclose it.
Since then, the couple said they spent nearly $100,000 to fix this frightening mess.
“There was an opening at the top of this cable, so we knew they were at least crawling through,” Powell said.
The bats were not just crawling. They were also leaving massive piles of waste.
“Enough to fertilize our garden and several farms,” Reicken said.
After nearly two years, the couple is now able to live inside their dream home bat-free.
The couple hopes their story will bring awareness about the importance of proper home inspections to prevent others from facing similar situations.
Copyright 2024 KIRO via CNN Newsource. All rights reserved.