bats driving me...bats

[OutThere]

It's quite delightful to wake up to a bat flying around the house at 3am.


We haven't had a bat problem in years—there used to be bats in the unfinished attic before it was renovated into a finished third floor fifteen years ago. Since then we've had a bat or two every summer, coming in when someone forgets to close the door or something. In the last 10 days we've had 8 bats come into the living area of our house late at night. It's pretty easy to lock them in a room with an open window and go back to sleep but at 3, 4 or 5am that's not what I want to be doing (the cat has done his share and killed 2, though). Clearly we have a problem, and I'm beginning to think we have a colony in the wall...lovely scratching, scrambling and bumping sounds come from behind a radiator in the living room. It's a nightmare to find where their entrance is on the outside of our rambling 4,000 sqft Queen Anne, and from what I understand we wouldn't be able to plug it before the fall anyhow, at least without risking either a house full of bats or a wall full of dead bats.

Where's the make-it-stop button?

 

[renewed]

 

[spillproof]

I got to pet a bat and watch one give birth while volunteering at a zoo in high school. They are really neat creatures. Ugly, yet cool.

From what I remember, bats are a protected species so you can get a professional excluder or make your own exclusion device

(P.S. don't tell my girlfriend you have a Queen Anne, she will want to make friends with you so she can visit and eat in your curvy breakfast nook [assuming you have one])

 

[-aggie-]

Not only are they protected, but if you have them flying around, you need to have them caught and tested to make sure none of them have rabies, since a bite can be undetectable. I just went through all this with one bat. It wasn’t fun.

 

[leekohler]

Be careful. Talk to a professional about it and see what can be done. Try not to hurt any of them- they're extremely valuable to the ecosystem. They may not be pretty, but we do need bats. I'm sure you can find a way to get rid of them without hurting them. There has to be a professional out there who does this.

 

[OutThere]

I got to pet a bat and watch one give birth while volunteering at a zoo in high school. They are really neat creatures. Ugly, yet cool.

From what I remember, bats are a protected species so you can get a professional excluder or make your own exclusion device

(P.S. don't tell my girlfriend you have a Queen Anne, she will want to make friends with you so she can visit and eat in your curvy breakfast nook [assuming you have one])

They're definitely cool creatures, though certainly cooler when they're outside eating bugs than inside flying around the living room.

Thanks for the link, I'm going to observe the house at dusk tonight and make an excluder if I can tell where they're coming from. I've got a sneaking suspicion that they've found a way into the house from under the wraparound porch...if that's true I'll be on the phone to a bat control service so fast.

(No curvy breakfast nook but lots of cool, marginally useful and random victorian era features in the house )

Not only are they protected, but if you have them flying around, you need to have them caught and tested to make sure none of them have rabies, since a bite can be undetectable. I just went through all this with one bat. It wasn’t fun.

We called the vet after the cat killed the first bat and he told us that there hasn't been a rabid bat in our area in an extremely long time.

 

[-aggie-]

Be careful. Talk to a professional about it and see what can be done. Try not to hurt any of them- they're extremely valuable to the ecosystem. They may not be pretty, but we do need bats. I'm sure you can find a way to get rid of them without hurting them. There has to be a professional out there who does this.

I was at a party last night, and some guy said he threw scalding water to kill one (outside his window, no less). I informed him they were protected.

Before I found out they were protected, we had 4 guys in an attic room with rakes, a tennis racket and other junk trying to figure out how to kill the bat. I eventually got a blanket to throw at it, which did absolutely nothing. We were about to make the final push to start swatting it, when one of us walked up to the bat calmly, took his pillow case, snatched up the bat off the wall, and threw it out the window. It was quite comedic.

 

[Melrose]

Be careful. Talk to a professional about it and see what can be done. Try not to hurt any of them- they're extremely valuable to the ecosystem. They may not be pretty, but we do need bats. I'm sure you can find a way to get rid of them without hurting them. There has to be a professional out there who does this.

This. This * 10. Bats get a bad rap from a lot of people, but they're harmless and do a great deal of good.

 

[ValSalva]

This. This * 10. Bats get a bad rap from a lot of people, but they're harmless and do a great deal of good.

Bats are cool. They keep the insect levels down. Ever lay on your lawn at late dusk and look up at the trees? You'd be amazed at all the bats flitting around. Very cool.

 

[Melrose]

We've always had bats that live in the eaves of the house. It's cool watching them hunt in the late evening.

 

[liamkp]

Bats are cool. They keep the insect levels down. Ever lay on your lawn at late dusk and look up at the trees? You'd be amazed at all the bats flitting around. Very cool.

Never seen a bat in my life....

 

[Reventon]

Never seen a bat in my life....

I think I only saw a bat once in my lifetime. And that was in the zoo.

 

[liamkp]

I think I only saw a bat once in my lifetime. And that was in the zoo.

Maybe in the zoo. But i dont think so...

 

[chown33]

Never seen a bat in my life....

What, no baseball in Indiana?


On the "things you don't want to find nesting in your walls", hornets are worse than bats.

 

[jr24]

back in june 2008 i rescued 8 baby bats at different times. they kept falling from the top of the house and they weren't able to climb back up to the nest.

got in touch with some friends who do bat rescue (among other thigns) and they kept coming to the house and one time we drove to where they were.

anyway, i'm not sure which bats are which, but here are some pictures. having never been around bat babies before, i was unsure how to handle them but i did all right. one of the last ones i rescued was really feisty. he started crawling all over the floor and i was having a time trying to get him and put him in the box -and- keep all my animals away from him.

it all worked out, though, for the ones i was able to save. there were a couple that had died from being on the ground too long and the ants getting to them.
learn more about them here: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_brown_bat">little brown bats.</a>

and there is also http://www.batconservation.org

they nested in the eaves every year. we've since had the outside redone, so i need to get a bat house. they are such amazing (and greatly misunderstood) creatures. and now there is some fungus that is wiping them out. this isn't the article i had first read, but http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/08/fungus-likely-to-wipe-out-common.html

we did have one get into the house from a crack in the attic door. poor dear was laying there on the hallway floor starting to be ganged up by the cats and dog. i just used a towel to pick her up since i didn't have the gloves handy and got her outside.

just in our small eaves, i think there were about 40-50 bats living there. a little brown bat can eat up to 1200 mosquitoes a night. it's great fun watching them flying around during the evening, too.

 

[dukebound85]

We took care of the bats we had years ago by blocking the hole to their roost after they all flew out

 

[liamkp]

What, no baseball in Indiana?


On the "things you don't want to find nesting in your walls", hornets are worse than bats.

Haha. My grandpas a freak about baseball. Ok. Never a bat with wings.

Definitely.

 

[Designer Dale]

We had an issue with bats after a developer came along and logged the 600 acres of woodland at the end of our street. They moved into a crack in the brick chimney and were able to move down through the cinderblock into the hearth vents. I had work gloves and a lot of patience at the time and did the catch and release thing. Caught 25 in one week, so I have little sympathy for folks complaining about a bat or two.

Dale

 

[iBlue]

I was at a party last night, and some guy said he threw scalding water to kill one (outside his window, no less).

This just made my stomach turn over with a mixture of anger, disgust and sadness. Might I suggest you avoid this person because he sounds completely unstable. That's horrific!

Bats are just misunderstood little flying mammals and as Lee said, they are important to the ecosystem.


Best of luck finding a way to usher them out of the house, OutThere. Some areas do have bat rescue people/centers that will come and remove them safely to a more suitable environment. Hopefully you have one of these nearby.

 

[liamkp]

This just made my stomach turn over with a mixture of anger, disgust and sadness. Might I suggest you avoid this person because he sounds completely unstable. That's horrific!

Sure.... I dont really care for bats but i wouldnt kill one..... On purpose...

 

[doucy2]

two words.... tennis racquet!

 

[iBlue]

two words.... tennis racquet!

Here's two more: unnecessary cruelty.

 

[yojitani]

What's with all the cruelty to bats in this thread? Around here they feed a lot on mosquitoes. They are friends in my eyes.