Tag: homes

Bats in the home need to be handled with care

 

Contact Snohomish Health District to prevent rabies

 Source: Snohomish County Health District

 

 
SNOHOMISH COUNTY, Wash. —Beware of bat bites and scratches. Most bats are harmless, but about 1 in 100 bats caries rabies.
 
Bats like to “hang out” in vacation cabins, attics, barns and outbuildings, and wherever there are plenty of insects they can eat. A bat bit a toddler in Pasco last year after falling out of a patio umbrella. The toddler got treatment to prevent rabies even before the bat was tested for the disease. Rabies is almost always deadly.
 
Last year, 32 people in Snohomish County got a series of shots to prevent the virus after possibly being exposed to rabies. Thanks to such preventive efforts by public health, no cases of rabies exposure in Washington state have advanced to human rabies disease since 1997.
 
Anyone who might have been bitten, scratched or simply sleeping in a place where a bat is later found should contact Snohomish Health District Communicable Disease staff at 425.339.5278.
 
Bats found in a home or setting where they may have contacted humans should be safelycaught:
·        Close the doors and windows to the room
·        Find a small container like a box or a large can
·        Wait until the bat lands on the floor or a wall
·        Wearing leather gloves, put the box over the bat
·        Close the box by sliding an extra piece of cardboard under the opening
·        Leave some small air holes in the sealed box
·        Call us for advice
 
We will help you determine if any people or pets in your home may have been exposed to rabies, and can arrange to test the bat if needed. If a bat is not available for testing and people have been exposed to it, rabies shots are usually necessary. 
 
In the Northwest, bats are the only animal likely to carry rabies, though there have been cases of pets getting rabies from bats, and of dogs infected with rabies being brought in from other countries.
 
 
Established in 1959, the Snohomish Health District works for a safer and healthier Snohomish County through disease prevention, health promotion, and protection from environmental threats. Find more information about the Health Board and the Health District at http://www.snohd.org.
 

Brad Pitt To Help Build 20 Leed Platinum Homes For Tribes In Montana

 

Source: White Wolf Pack

Sioux & Assiniboine Tribes Team with Brad Pitt’s Make it Right Non-profit to Build 20 Platinum Homes

The Sioux and Assiniboine tribes of Fort Peck, Montana has formed a partnership with actor Brad Pitt’s Make it Right non-profit organization to build sustainable homes, buildings and communities on their reservation.

Pitt established Make it Right in 2007 to provide housing for people in need. The residents of the Fort Peck Indian Reservation fit that criterion. There are more than 600 people waiting for housing on the reservation, according to tribal officials.

“Overcrowding is a chronic problem, with multiple families commonly living together in two-bedroom homes due to lack of accommodation,” writes Taylor Royle, a spokesperson for Make it Right.

The new homes will be solar-powered homes with three or four bedrooms; two or three bathrooms and be available to tribal members whose income levels are at or below 60 percent of the Area Median Income.

 

“As a tribal designer working in Indian country, I feel we have an obligation to design and build housing that is tied to the culture, community and place of Fort Peck,” says Joseph Kunkel, Enterprise Rose Architectural Fellow from the Sustainable Native Communities Collaborative.

 

 

“We’re excited about the potential impact this project may offer the Assiniboine and Sioux community, along with provide a national precedent for Indian Housing nationwide.”

Construction is due to begin this year on the reservation.