A Richmond doctor woke up to a bat pushing at her lips, a scary reminder that bats in the house are a real rabies risk.

• Christa Edelman felt something on her mouth in the night and realized it was a bat trying to burrow between her lips.
• She did not kill it, because bats have to be caught alive to be tested for rabies — her husband trapped it in a beach bucket.
• Bat teeth are tiny, so a bite can go unnoticed, and rabies is almost always fatal once symptoms start.
• She went straight to the ER for the rabies shots; the bat later tested negative, but she says do not wait to find out.

Outlook: The advice is to have an exterminator check attics and chimneys, especially in older homes.