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Bats in the Attic
Ah, bats in the attic. This is one of the more serious and complicated problems in the field of nuisance wildlife control. You must follow these steps:
- Determine the Species of Bat
- Make Sure There Are No Baby Bats!
- Find Out How They Are Getting In / Out
- Safely Remove the ENTIRE Colony
- Seal up 100% of the Openings
- Clean Up the Guano Droppings
This simple checklist is not as simple as it seems. It's often a very complex and very detail - oriented process, which
is often difficult for even experienced professional
wildlife companies. |
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How to Get Rid of Bats in the Attic: The process
is definitely not simple. In a nutshell, you
have to find out how they are flying in and out,
install a special one-way device (there are
several different types, for different
scenarios) over the exit area, and let them fly
out, but not fly back in. And you MUST NOT do it
when there are baby bats present, or you will
have a big problem. Plus you'd be breaking the
law, but that's the least of your concerns,
compared to potentially hundreds of stranded
baby bats now crawling down your walls, into
your house, and eventually dying and rotting & stinking. The process is complex, because bats can enter such tiny areas, about 3/8 inch. You must do a 100% effective sealup job, with no mess-ups, and the exclusion devices must
be the correct kind. If on an eave gap, a funnel is correct. If across a large fascia board, polynet is correct. Etc. Experience is very important when it comes to bat jobs.
Click here for my nationwide list of 100's of bat removal experts serving every US town. I do actually recommend that you hire a professional with bat removal experience for getting rid of bat problems. I myself
trained for two years with a bat removal expert before I started my own bat removal jobs, and even then, I had a lot to learn. If you mess it up, you've got a big problem on your hands.
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Bat colonies want to roost in a safe place - a cave, for example. But the attic of a home will do quite nicely. The colonies of bats are usually composed
entirely of female bats, and are called a maternity colony. The female bats usually give birth to one baby bat each summer. Thus, the colony size roughly doubles at birth, and when the baby bats start to fly, you notice twice as many bats. Bats live a very long time, and
they stay in the same place year-round, conditions permitting, or they migrate and return each summer. Thus, with time, bat colonies can grow to enormous sizes.
A fully infested bat attic is one of the biggest and most challenging problems
in the field of problem wildlife removal. |
How Do You Get Bats Out of the Attic? - The best tool is education. Here are tips about bats in the attic:
TYPE & TIME OF NOISE: Bats are nocturnal, but they are pretty quiet in small numbers, and most people don't notice any noise. However, a large swarm of thousands of bats makes a hell of a ruckus, what with the crawling and flying and squeaking of the whole bunch.
Sometimes people will hear them rustling and fluttering above the ceiling or in the walls. The best chance of hearing them is at dusk, as they are lining up to fly out of the house.
HOW THEY GOT INSIDE: Bats can squeeze through extremely small gaps - 3/8 of an inch. They like to fly into homes at small architectural gaps near the edge of the roofline, usually. From there, they crawl to their roosting spots. It's often easy to spot where
they are going in and out, because they leave brown staining from the grease and oil in their fur, at the entry point. Or, you an just watch the house at dusk and see where they are coming out. It might be several different areas of the home.
EVIDENCE LEFT BEHIND: Although physical sightings of them entering and exiting the building are the best
identifier, bats clearly make themselves known with the odor of their droppings, or guano. It can accumulate in huge amounts, contaminating an
attic and potentially causing lung disease for the people in the house.
TIME OF YEAR: If the attic is warm enough, year round. Otherwise, they migrate and return each spring. Many bat problems happen when the young start to crawl around and fly, and sometimes the inexperienced young crawl down into the house. This usually
happens in the month of August, which is the high season for bat control work.
METHOD OF CONTROL: Mothballs or ammonia won't make them leave, nor will ultrasonic sound emitters or strobe lights. These tactics have been ruled fraudulent by the FTC, and they DO NOT WORK. The bats must be removed from the attic, and they are protected as colonies,
so they must not be killed. You don't want to kill a beneficial bat anyway. The bats are usually excluded through one-way exclusion devices. Sealing the building properly is critical to the process.
Here we see photos from two different bat jobs. I've isolated the colony to the most common exit hole, by sealing off all other exits, and installed one-way exclusion netting. This has to be set just right, with ample room for the bats to be able to drop out
at the top, and clear the bottom, but not be able to fly back in. It's very precise, and it takes practice.
The bottom line is that bat control is often
a very difficult task that requires professional
attention and the experience of a wildlife
control pro who has done several complete bat
jobs.
Customer Email:
Very impressive site David.....I have respect for what you do. I am living in Southern California and was looking for someone to do what you do - for bats to be specific. I need to get rid of bats in my attic. My studio mate yesterday removed the bat from our studio
(safely he claims) but i still had a few concerns i wanted to ask you about i you have a brief moment to look at. The bat entered ( I believe ) through a rotating vent on the roof the other night while i was working in my upstairs
office lighted to probably attract my visitor. I herd some chirps then saw him fly very closely by my head. I ran as people do and proceeded to work on a removal plan..but gave up after an hour or so and left it to the next day for
my studio mate. In the process that night I had him fly close to me...not seeing him at all times and then reappear...I noticed upon a hyper exam the next day a couple little fresh marks on upper back...probably from something else
like backpack I was wearing..but not sure. I am sure that even though he was not insight at all times I would have felt a stick ( I hope)...also I looked up at him a couple times almost directly above me roosting on a rafter and felt
( perhaps imagined ) a drop or two on the face...could that be saliva? Obviously an
over concerned nut but would love your opinion. The bat is no longer avail. Thanks David, John
It turned out in this case that John had a colony of bats living in his attic, and one crawled down and did get through either a vent or a different gap leading from the attic to the house. It wasn't just
an isolated incident, as people often assume is the case, because bats can be very quiet, and people often don't know that there's a group of them living up in the attic, until they've caused a very big
problem. I referred John to my bat specialist in his area of San Diego, and he got his problem professionally taken care of, and his attic cleaned properly.
I have written several other detailed articles:
How to get bats out of the house
How to get bats out of the chimney
Bat exclusion tips and techniques
Bat trapping
How to catch a bat
How to inspect your house for bat entry
Bat prevention methods
The author, David, is a bat removal expert with
over 500 successful bat control jobs under his
belt. I want to stress the importance of proper
bat removal, and the value of these animals to
the ecosystem. I've witnessed dozens of failed
do-it-yourself bat jobs over the years, and it
is not pretty - dead bats, horrible odors,
rabies vaccinations, and so on. Bat removal work
is not easy - I trained for two years learning,
and even then, it took many jobs and hands-on
training before I was competent. I highly
recommend that you consult my list of wildlife
control companies on the home page, and hire a
professional to come out and look at your bat
problem. Get a few quotes if you must. And
remember, do not perform any bat exclusions during the summer maternity months. For more general information and links, go to my main bat removal page.
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