# Bats



## CowboyAndy (Feb 19, 2008)

We have a bat problem too. The only REAL way to get rid of them is to stop them from getting in.


We had a guy come last year to assess our situation and said we have a colony of about 200-300 bats. Seems like alot, but its not hard for it to get that big. 

The main thing is to seal off where they are getting in WHILE THEY ARE NOT IN THERE. Get a few people to hang outside at dusk, and watch exactly where they are coming from. Seal that hole (it diesn't have to be more than the size of a quarter for them to get through it). Do this for as long as it takes, because they will keep finding new places to get in. We were told that bats will always try to get to the place they were born, and chances are alot of them were born there.

The guy we talked to quoted about $500 to seal the house so they couldn't get in, and guarenteed us to be bat free for 5 years. This would involve him and a team of people coming every evening at dusk and sealing the holes while the bats were out. You want to seal while they are OUT so that once everything is sealed up you don't have a few hundred bats trapped in your attic so they can die in there. 

Good luck!


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## Cossack (Jul 23, 2006)

CowboyAndy:
Thanks for the response. I have been told the same thing here in my state of Michigan, but they wanted a lot more money. We have brown bats which I have read do not necessarily live in colonies. I can only hear one bat living behind my wall.

I have heard of fumigating your house for roaches and I am wondering if this would poison the bat too. When spring gets here I will have find and plug any holes as well.

With that many bats in your house some must get into your living quarters quite frequently. How do you deal with that? My response is to flail away with a broom, but those buggers are FAST.


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## justdon (Nov 16, 2005)

*Cossack*

I always heard the BEST device to get an inside bat is a tennis racket. It is more like a fly swatter and lets air THRU rather than around like your broom,,,and they can sonar your broom!! IF you have an exposed brick chimney it needs a screen over it,,the top to keep them out. that is their Fav spot!! One guy I heard of can catch them in his bare hands,,,dont suggest THAT!! how about a grass hopper net and let him go outside unharmed??. They keep me from getting west nile here. Skeeters used to carry me off at dusk,,,not hardly a skeeter to be found NOW,,,must have ALOT of bats in my belfry!!


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## MastershieldSouthernMO (Mar 15, 2008)

with bats, it takes extensive sealings to keep them out, we do about 20 to 30 bat jobs a year, sometimes more. last year we got over 300 bats out of a church and vacuumed out 1,200 pounds of pure bat guano out of the attic of that same church. we do from small houses to big corporate buildings, highest last year we went was 90' to get to a bat entry.


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## billie_t (Feb 17, 2008)

if your house is old (as mine is) you will never get them out (i dont think)
i spent a summer every night watching where they came from...closing holes..i purposely left one open at the peak of the house...i waited and watched and was pretty sure i had them down to one opening then one night in early August (that was when i read that the babies would all be flying by now)..i sealed up the last hole

feeling like a champion now..i waited till early morning and went out to have a look..there they were clinging to to walls..screeching trying to get through the stainless steel mesh with less than 1/4 inch holes...I WON...i thought...
nest evening i went out to watch and see if i could see where they had moved too (my outer buildings?)...there i seen a couple..where did they come from..it was hard to tell....then a few more coming from around the other side of the house?..then when i got to the other side of the house..a few more ???from the other side of the house?? what is going on...i backed up into the yard a little and i could now see the slope of the roof...there they were coming out from under the shingles....turns out my old hose does not have plywood under the shingles but boards..with cracks between them..them bats just crawled under the lips of the shingles and were "home sweet home"

so i guess when its new shingle time it is also new plywood time?


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## justdon (Nov 16, 2005)

"Billie",
I would have to say that IF your bats are crawling out from under the wood shingles NOW is the time for shingling. How do those shingles hold the water OUT when it cant shed a bat???

Yep those cracks in the sheating of wood shingles are the pits,,,plywood is quick,other solution I have seen is to take them off and move them up,one at a time.and put a few more 'recycled' old boards to match on the bottom!! OR rip some more small boards and fill in those gaps!!

I heard that a bat will eat half its weight EVERY night on skeeters so the guano does add up QUICKLY!!


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## Cossack (Jul 23, 2006)

I have done some research on these damn pests and I can say that bats mostly eat moths and some species do not eat mosquitoes at all. Do not be fooled by this line of reasoning. When they get in your house it is VERY disturbing, and their guano is toxic. Once a bat lives in or on your house it sees that as home. 

That guy who catches them in his hand is crazy. I looked at one of the bats I killed and they have some serious fangs on them. They also carry rabies.

If they get in I recommend killing it. The tennis racket is probably better than a broom. What does anyone think of fumigating as is done for roaches?


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## billie_t (Feb 17, 2008)

justin..i have asphalt shingles but the boards below have some gaps between them from drying out over the last 100 years i guess...when it is time for new shingles (i think a year or two) i will be putting new plywood down also i think..they (them bats) just push a shingle up enough to squeeze out..i have not notices any leaks in the roof but for now i have give up..till spring..then i may have to try some drastic measures


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## Cossack (Jul 23, 2006)

Billie:

My house was built in 1863 and I had the same roof as you when I bought it. A layer of cedar shingles were laying on strips of wood and two layers of asphalt shingles were on top of that. 

I had a roofer do a total tear off and he laid down plywood before putting on one layer of asphalt shingles. I still get the damn bats in my house occasionally.


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## steve1234 (Sep 13, 2007)

the killing fields.......

During the previous summer we had seen bats flying from the house in the evening (we live in a heavily wooded area). They looked like they were coming from a space between a facia board and our gutter. Fast forware one year: remodel demo starts, pull down the ceiling....hmm lots-o-crap, wife horrified. Looks like mouse droppings, set traps. A portion of our house has a second story and the activity was coming from this chase that ran the height of the second story wall. From down stairs you could actually look up inside this chase. Heard squeeking sounds, sounds like mice, set more traps, bb guns loaded. 

A few days pass, phone rings at the office....my son is all excited asking if he can shoot it? I calmly ask...shoot what? He says, "the bat caught between the window and screen". I quickly think...hmm, new window, no don't shoot it. Bat??...hmm maybe 'dem's not mice afterall. 

Wife now at Def Con 5.....immediate action required. Still hear squeeking. Priority 1: Keep 'em out of the house. Must seal up the entry path. So I boxed in the bottom of the chase (picture). 

Priority 2: Serve the eviction notice: I never did like that stupid chase so out it comes. Got on the roof, pulled the fasteners from the piece of siding, attached a line, moved to the other side of the roof, gave a yank on the line to pull the siding off, it came off, let the bats fly away.......nothin'...?? Lots more droppings, still hear some squeeking, approach with caution. 

Hmmm...get off the roof, grab the .22 pellet gun, son covers me with his gas powered air soft gun. While on the first story roof, I lean against the 2nd story wall under the 2nd story eve and shine the mag light up between the backside of the gutter and the facia board.......a few pair of beedy red eyes looking back at me and down the barrel of the pellet gun. 

Round one....one bat drops (screams from the wife below). Another round, another bat (more screams). 3 airsoft rounds, another bat. Another pellet (here's the good one)....three bats drop out one at a time. Whoa, nice shootin' tex. 3 more dropped from the spot and made a run for it, they made it out. 

When the shooting stopped, we had 14 bats down + the 1 we got trapped in the window, 3 bat insurgents escaped. I ripped every nasty thing out of the that wall and tossed it. Sealed up the siding and have not seen / heard any new evidence. It turns out there was a gap about 3/4" at the top of the facia board that they were able to get over and into the wall chase.


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## Cossack (Jul 23, 2006)

Steve:

Good story, and I would laugh a little more if it were not so true and close to my situation.

I can's use firearms or dynamite because i still need my front wall. Does anyone have info on the fumigation devises like roach bombs? i have never used them. I think what ever would poison roaches would work on bats too right?


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## so-elitecrete (Oct 27, 2007)

*.22cal skeet gun,,,*

works great - lotsa fun & good practice 


mothballs if you can stand the odor !


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## MastershieldSouthernMO (Mar 15, 2008)

one thing to consider as well, some bats are protected and if you are killing bats or poisoning them, you may find yourselves in trouble with the law if it is found out about. i understand they are in your home, but a professional bat removal service is much cheaper than a fine that a federal court could assign you. go to www.batcon.org for more bat information.


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## steve1234 (Sep 13, 2007)

legal aspects noted..

Wife at Def Con 5 vs fine potential....hmmm....."son, go fetch me them pellets"


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## billie_t (Feb 17, 2008)

i have built 2 large bat houses and i hope this spring some of the new "moms" will elect to move to the new "digs" ..closer to the pond so the new mothers can get the shopping done without straying so far from home

i am one of those people whom does not want to kill them..but i have to work at getting the numbers down in the attic


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## so-elitecrete (Oct 27, 2007)

*when we had our problem,,,*

in a 1860s house near the river, i found, rather'n a tennis racket, a badmitten racquet work'd much better,,, faster'n easier on the elbow.

not near as much fun's the .22 skeet gun, tho !


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## Leah Frances (Jan 13, 2008)

Each night at dusk my lab mix sits in the back yard staring skyward with a wistful (I know) look on his dopey face. He sits watching the bats fly around our yard. I'm not sure if he wishes he could fly, or if he thinks the bats are squirrels that have learned a new trick to evade him.


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## DepotDweller (Dec 20, 2007)

steve1234 said:


> the killing fields.......
> 
> During the previous summer we had seen bats flying from the house in the evening (we live in a heavily wooded area). They looked like they were coming from a space between a facia board and our gutter. Fast forware one year: remodel demo starts, pull down the ceiling....hmm lots-o-crap, wife horrified. Looks like mouse droppings, set traps. A portion of our house has a second story and the activity was coming from this chase that ran the height of the second story wall. From down stairs you could actually look up inside this chase. Heard squeeking sounds, sounds like mice, set more traps, bb guns loaded.
> 
> ...


Are you my husband and is that my boy with the air soft gun? :laughing: I'm printing this up for them to read, they'll LOVE it!! It's that time of year that the blackbirds swoop down and snip at my cat, wonder if the boys wanna whip out their bb guns? <hmmmmmmmmmm> :laughing: :whistling2:


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## ocoee (May 31, 2007)

I recently did a 1878 house for bats with easily 500 bats in the attic

The company that comes out every evening at dusk either has little training or a lot of free time

You don't seal one hole at a time you seal all holes but one at one time and you can do it in the daytime

EVERY hole and gap has to be sealed, I use a foam made by Todal but I believe that Hilti also makes some if not duct tape works in a pinch
Then you attack a tube such as a caulking tube or piece of 1 1/2 PVC as an outlet for the bats
Either put a flag on the exit end of the tube so they can't fly back in or put the exit end into a home made bucket trap so they can be permanently removed form the area

Bucket trap

Cut the bottom out of the bottom of the bucket and cover with 1/4 inch steel mesh
Cut a hole in the top of the bucket just big enough for the exit tube to fit in tape or foam the tube in place
Use wire, bungee chords or trusty duct tape to secure the bucket

I'll take a picture of the simple trap I'm doing now Tuesday if it will help


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## dstorjoh (Apr 13, 2011)

This is all great information.


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