My wife called me this morning that there was a bat in the house. After a while of trying to scare it outside she called a pest control company, guess how much it cost to make a house call for bat removal. Lol... I guess I need to get my chimney inspected.
Bats
Davidsel47
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My wife called me this morning that there was a bat in the house. After a while of trying to scare it outside she called a pest control company, guess how much it cost to make a house call for bat removal. Lol... I guess I need to get my chimney inspected.
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We have friends that have just spent thousands getting a colony of bats out of their attic. The guy doing the work said they almost always find them in houses with steep pitched roofs with natural stone facades. They were entering in the brick freeze and after they closed that opening they started going in and out from the ridge vent.
Not uncommon for bats, flying squirrels to come in through the fireplace.
Not uncommon for bats, flying squirrels to come in through the fireplace.
Bat removal in Texas is not cheap. For some reason it’s much cheaper in other parts of the US. My advice is shop around, but of course the cheapest isn’t always the best. I just paid a bunch of money to remove a colony from my house, and the cost was like 10 times what some relatives of mine in other parts of the country paid for nearly identical work in the last few years. I half-considered flying one of their guys to Houston to do it.
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Leather gloves and a butterfly net. Takes a little time but they can be removed without injuring the animal or the person.
Would have been my reaction to head home and do just that, but not sure the OP had that option. By all means, please video tape and share when you tell your significant other that. LOL
The pest company told her all she needed was a fishing net but she said Heck No! Lol.. $185 for 10 minutes of work is a pretty good gig IMO. I would have done it when I got home but she couldn't wait.
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i'm picturing a scene from that movie, The Great Outdoors
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Getting rid of bats is super easy and cheap. A few bucks at any hardware store.
Bats fly by sonar so to speak.
If you know where they are coming in, put some loose screen or netting they can’t pass through around the opening and let it hang down where the only opening is at the bottom.
On the way out, they will sense it and follow it down to the opening. But, for whatever reason, it confuses them and they cant find their way back in and go elsewhere.
It may take a few days but I have used this method on a couple of occasions and it worked both times.
I guess mentioning that you need to seal the hole afterwards goes without saying. [emoji3]
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Bats fly by sonar so to speak.
If you know where they are coming in, put some loose screen or netting they can’t pass through around the opening and let it hang down where the only opening is at the bottom.
On the way out, they will sense it and follow it down to the opening. But, for whatever reason, it confuses them and they cant find their way back in and go elsewhere.
It may take a few days but I have used this method on a couple of occasions and it worked both times.
I guess mentioning that you need to seal the hole afterwards goes without saying. [emoji3]
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
As high as that seems to you having to pay it, it doesn't seem as high a price to pay for a wife having to leave her own house for a few hours. Did they at least do a scan around and suggest whether there was any likelihood this bat was not alone?
He told her it must have came in through the fireplace because everything else was closed. Ya, that's what I told my wife about the price, they tried to tell her how and when she said no they were there within 10 minutes. Not a bad deal.
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Pay to have it done. Bats are high on the list of frequent carriers of rabies.
I came into contact with a bat many years ago. I thought nothing of it until a veterinarian told me about bats and rabies. Trouble with rabies is, if you’re showing symptoms, then it’s literally too late for a cure and a painful death is imminent. I ended up getting rabies shots.
I came into contact with a bat many years ago. I thought nothing of it until a veterinarian told me about bats and rabies. Trouble with rabies is, if you’re showing symptoms, then it’s literally too late for a cure and a painful death is imminent. I ended up getting rabies shots.
The screen or netting you’re describing is what the pest control guys will call a “bat valve” but it’s nothing magical and is basically what you’ve said. The expense of removing a large colony comes with sealing up all access points (since they’ll try and come back to their “home” by any means they can, or establish one very close by, like somewhere else in your house/roof they can get in), and disinfecting any area they’ve lived in for any extended time period. Not only is the rabies an issue for the live ones, but their droppings contain all kinds of nasty viruses and other pathogens. I have no problem paying a pro to do all of these things for me, but the price has to be within reason.
On the general subject of bats, and the abundance of responses here that imply they are a general hazard, let's not forget what a crucial part they play in our eco-system, especially in areas with any agriculture at all. They fly throughout my neighborhood every night seasonally.
While I obviously don't want them in my house and I have no intent to handle them, if I had the real estate, I would have already built a bat tower, well away from the house of course. Just like I'd have bee hives.
While I obviously don't want them in my house and I have no intent to handle them, if I had the real estate, I would have already built a bat tower, well away from the house of course. Just like I'd have bee hives.
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Agreed 100%. One of the best insect control devices around. They eat something like 3x their body weight while feeding. I live on 2 acres and used to have lots of them flying around every evening and never had a mosquito problem at all. Just this summer something changed and they must have lost their roost because there are no more flying around and the skeeters have been worse than I have ever seen in 13 years by far. I mean I cannot even step a foot outside before getting swarmed. It has never been anywhere close to this bad. I plan to build a couple of bat houses myself over the winter and hope to get a good colony to take up residence.
I don't think they are a hazzard at all. Just don't need them in the housing structure. All this stuff about rabies , virus, pathogens etc while technically true, (and good scare words for the folks charging $1,200 to use), are all a part of just using good common sense and precaution if you want to habitat them or need to save a few dollars to remove them.
Public Service Announcement: Perhaps a miracle
but in these same 13 years of commingling with them every evening, I have neither been bitten by one nor contracted rabies or any other vile disease for that matter. That stuff is for the movies and bat removal companies.
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Lol, being out of town, I’d be in the pay someone boat too. If I was home, my wife would have just left the house till I got home.
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Wet bat story share.
This bat escaped attacking gulls by going into the water and it swam to the jetty rock near me. I left it alone to dry out, rest, and fly away as I stood nearby and continued fishing. Time passes and I decide to change lures. While I was turned around, the bat made its way over to me. I feel something, look down, and I see it wrapped around my ankle. I panic and hurriedly shook it off and stepped away to see if I was bitten, broken skin, etc. and I seemed fine but decide it’s time to leave. I share my story on another site and a Veterinarian chimes in and highly recommends to get rabies shots immediately. Vet says the bat may been suffering from rabies issues to be out during the day like that. The only way to know for sure was to test the bat. After some nervous research, I opted for the series of rabies shots. I hate needles. Some say the bat was trying to climb me so that it could drop off and fly away.
I filmed this with a waterproof Pentax pocket camera 13 years ago at the Quintana Jetty…
This bat escaped attacking gulls by going into the water and it swam to the jetty rock near me. I left it alone to dry out, rest, and fly away as I stood nearby and continued fishing. Time passes and I decide to change lures. While I was turned around, the bat made its way over to me. I feel something, look down, and I see it wrapped around my ankle. I panic and hurriedly shook it off and stepped away to see if I was bitten, broken skin, etc. and I seemed fine but decide it’s time to leave. I share my story on another site and a Veterinarian chimes in and highly recommends to get rabies shots immediately. Vet says the bat may been suffering from rabies issues to be out during the day like that. The only way to know for sure was to test the bat. After some nervous research, I opted for the series of rabies shots. I hate needles. Some say the bat was trying to climb me so that it could drop off and fly away.
I filmed this with a waterproof Pentax pocket camera 13 years ago at the Quintana Jetty…
The Waugh Street bridge colony in Houston is located such that for many years, I drove over that bridge daily. If you walk towards downtown a few hundred feet, there is a grove of trees, most of which are pretty short and spread apart. As the bats fly out at dusk, a lot of them filter through that area. The first time I was walking through there while they were going out for the night, I saw them by the hundreds per minute flying past me. I could smell them they were so close. Freaked my lady out for the first few minutes, but it became one of our favorite parts of the bats' evening exodus. Never ever had one get closer than a couple of feet and definitely, never any contact.Public Service Announcement: Perhaps a miracle
Harvey killed a lot of that colony, then the 2021 freeze got some more, so it's not as impressive as it was 10 years ago, but I still like to go down there now and again to see the spectacle. The Congress Bridge colony in ATX is way bigger and much more impressive, but too long a drive and I avoid most of ATX anymore.
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Only 2-3 cases of human rabies annually in the US. I dont think we habe to worry it too much..........
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