I Have Bats, What Do I Do?
Finding out that you have a bat infestation in your home can be very stressful. These nocturnal creatures are often attracted to chimneys and attics, resulting in an increasing number of families asking “How do you get rid of a bat in the house?”
If you have a bat loose in your home, it can be hard to know what to do, and if there is a larger infestation (colony), there may be an unwelcome odor because of their droppings (guano). While you may be able to get rid of one or two bats flying around your house, if you have a bigger colony it is often best to call in professional help since it is not an easy task and with bats there are diseases they carry as well.
Nevertheless, if you’re keen to try yourself, here are some tips to help you to get bats out of your home.
How Do Bats Get Into The House?
Bats can get into any small crack or gap in your home’s structure. They can even get through gaps which are just 3/8” in size and often come through missing or loose tiles or shingles. If there is a gap somewhere in the bricks, they can easily make it into a passage so they can access your home, and if you have an opening into your attic, bats will often come to roost inside.
Warehouses, barns, and other structures with big doors are attractive to bats, as are places where humans only go infrequently, like grain silos and storage sheds. Bats are also drawn to places in the house with large pillars or thick wooden beams.
One problem is that bats prefer to live with other bats in a large colony, and therefore if you see one bat, there is a good chance that a bigger colony is somewhere in your home.
How Long Can A Bat Survive in a House?
A bat can live for a surprisingly long time in a house since they can easily get into the walls through cold air returns and squeeze up the walls from basements and through attic hatches. Therefore, if you’re asking how do you get rid of a bat, there is really only one answer – a live bat exclusion.
What Do I Do? How To Get Rid Of A Bat In The House?
If you want to try to get rid of a bat in your house yourself, you first need to inspect the entire building to work out how they are getting into your home.
Check the attic and identify the type of bats that are infesting your home. Once you have done this, you then need to find a way of excluding the bats (never try trapping them). You can exclude bats from your home by sealing most of the house while the bats are in the house and then seal the exit points as soon as all of the bats have left. You can fit one-way exclusion devices, which allow the bats to escape but not re-enter the property.
You can then clean the space where they have been living to get rid of odors and feces.
If you’re also asking, “do bats come back to the same place to nest each year?” the answer is yes, so that means you need to keep your exclusion devices in place and keep checking to make sure that the bat colony cannot return the following year.
Why Get Rid Of Bats?
Although one or two bats in your home may not be a huge problem, if there is a large colony they can cause a lot of disturbance, making noise during dawn and dusk and leaving considerable amounts of urine and feces, which can corrode metal and wood and even collapse attic ceilings. Bat “guano” can also cause fungal infections (histoplasmosis) in human lungs, and the bats themselves could even carry rabies.
Getting rid of a bat colony can be extremely difficult without professional help, and therefore calling in a team of experienced pest control experts is the best way to ensure that all bats are removed from your property safely and humanely.
Let the certified bat experts at NJ Pest Control get rid of your bat colony. We service northern New Jersey. Trust us to give you quick and reliable high-quality service. Contact NJ Pest and the worries of a bat in the house and questioning, “what do I do” will be solved.
