Bats in the house. How to Solve the problem

If you’ve ever woken up overnight to an odd fluttering sound in the bedroom, or the thought that something may have just buzzed by your head, and you realize it was a bat, you’re not alone. I can make an educated guess and say this was likely early in the spring, or in middle-late summer. Unfortunately, this is fairly common, and is the most obvious indicator that you’ve got bats living in the structure. There are other clues that will lead people to this same conclusion such as piles of unidentifiable droppings in the attic, or gentle high pitched screech noises overnight in the attic above your head. Regardless of how you found out, you probably want to get it taken care of ASAP.

Generally there are only two kinds of bats that will end up utilizing a structure and attic spaces. The Big Brown Bat and the Little Brown Bat (clever names, I know). Although there are 8 species known to live in Massachusetts, these are the only two that regularly end up inside your home. The Little Brown Bat was once the most abundant bat in Massachusetts, and one of the most abundant in North America. Unfortunately around 2008 scientists discovered a fungus that attacks the faces of bats called White Nose Syndrome that wiped out appx 98% of the colonizing Little Brown Bats in Massachusetts. It was found to kill tens of thousands of individuals over one winter in different hibernacula sites. It is thought to be attributed to slight temperature increases, which allowed the fungus to grow in now warmer, slightly moist environments like cave systems that bats are known to hibernate in here in Massachusetts. Now there are very few Little Brown Bats, but their close relative, the Big Brown Bat, is the most common species we deal with getting inside and living in homes.

Now the important part- How to get them out of your house. Overall, the process is pretty straight forward. The use of specific tubes for bats to evict themselves (called one way doors, bat valves, bat cones, etc) get placed on the main entry points (sometimes that may be one or two, sometimes that may be 7 or 8), and everything else around the structure that has any sort of gap has to be sealed up. Think of what would happen if you locked yourself out of your home. It’s your home, so you have to get back in, so you’ll break a window, crack a door, do whatever you need to in order to get back in. Same with an animal that is living in your home. Installing those bat valves has to be done in the correct locations, or else you risk the bats getting stressed out trying to find a way to get out and accidentally pushing further into your home. You also have to be extremely diligent in sealing up other locations around the home because they WILL attempt to get back in somewhere else. This is why having professionals who are trained to know where to look, what to use to seal entry points, and getting the job done right is important. Not to mention bats are protected, so harming bats in any way is illegal, whether it was done on purpose or not. Bats are pretty small when their wings are tucked in, and can get into entry points the size of your pinky finger. Think about a roofline and how many tiny gaps there may be that are that small. I could go into so much more detail about what types of locations they look for, the most common spots on a house, but that is another topic all in itself. While the process in theory to get bats out is simple - install valves to allow them to leave and seal up the other vulnerable locations and remove the valves after the proper amount of time has passed- the work that goes into doing it correctly and efficiently is extremely meticulous. Not to mention that it can only be done in specific times of year - you cannot evict bats during June and July (breeding season) and winter months (late october - March/early april).

Big Brown Bats in attic