Once that is done the slime can be removed with mineral spirits, available anywhere paint is sold. This is non-reactive with all finished except wax and oil. If you have a poly or varnish finish on the furniture that may have provided the wood with enough protection. If it is lacquer and the bat didn’t penetrate the finish into the wood clean with mineral spirits. If it marred the finish and it cant be wiped off as described, or you have a compromised lacquer finish and it penetrated to the wood, ie, colored the wood, or if it is a shellac finish the finish will have to be removed. Common paint stripper can be used and it wil deal with the organic residue since that is what most finishes are any how. I use it to degrease the crevaces around handles on my frying pans. Sure beats scraping-up the calphalon. Wood damage may be sanded out or cleansed with solvent short of cutting through the wood patina and creating a bright spot.

Treating a chemical discoloration from the wood being soaked in bat guts will probably require bleaching. This is done with swiming pool chlorinator, oxalic acid or a combination of industrial hydrogen peroxide and sodium hydroxide in order of toxicity. The whole area, such as a drawer front or table top needs to be done, spot repairs create their own problems. After that the color needs to be reintroduced into the wood to match the rest of the piece. Then a clear finish is applied to also match.

Or you could call a professional.

You could get some maggots and put them in an upside-down jar over the area. I believeflies are how taxidermists deal with issues of getting rid of flesh. I don’t think that flies would harm the furniture. Otherwise a taxadermist might be able to give you an idea.

Mike Fox

@Monado: I love the idea of using beetles or ants, but I lost Grissom’s phone number and the ants are unlikely to be cooperative in Minnesota this time of year :-).

Since glue is mostly protein, anything that removes glue might work.

Your best bet would be to contact one of the major enzyme suppliers and see if you can talk them into a free sample. They give these out regularly to prospective customers, but you might find a salesperson sympathetic to your situation that will send you one anyway. Remember, a small amount of enzyme will go a long way. One gram of a sufficiently concentrated sample will be enough to make a couple liters of “bat cleaner”. Just remember to give it time to soak and work.

Companies to check would be:

DSM
Enzyme Development Corp.
Genencor Intl.
Novo Nordisk
Valley Research, Inc.

I recommend trying EDC and Valley Reasearch first. They are smaller companies than the other three and are more likely to be friendly to an odd request.

Good luck.

-OEJ

My mother quite sensibly suggest that I call the fellow that made the bookcases in the first place. He said that he used a lacquer finish, and that some lacquer thinner would probably take off the protein gunk and lacquer (which it may have soaked into). Hopefully this wouldn’t damage/alter the stain, and we can just spray some new lacquer on and call it good. (It’s the top of a high shelf, so perfection is not required.)

That said, I think we’ll try one of the less destructive cleaning options first. Oil soap seems worth a shot (and we have it in the house), and while I’ve never heard of Goo Gone, it sounds like something everyone with pets and teenagers ought to have in the house :-).

I did take some pictures of the bat in its deceased entirety before removing him and discovering he’d left much of his wing behind. (I’m just not convinced there’s an emoticon for that.) They’re still in the camera, though, so I’ll have to try to move them to the computer later today (I’m on air at the campus radio station at the moment). I can also grab a shot of the current “gunky” state before we actually try anything.

Boy, there’s a fine photo essay if I heard of one. I’m guessing Pulizter…

That, a soft rag, and lots of gentle rubbing.