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Bats Removal | Fast & Accurate Wildlife Control

Humane Wildlife Removal and exterminator in Miami Florida & Surroundings

In popular culture, bats are portrayed as scary, blood-sucking, rabid creatures, and many people dislike them. However, their importance to the ecosystem cannot be overemphasized. Some of which include eating loads of bugs and pollinating flowers. Most bats are nocturnal and will become active after sunset. In establishing a habitat, bats are primarily concerned about where they can sleep during the day or hibernate during winter. Therefore, their roosts are usually in caves, under bridges, and trees. However, they might seek shelter in human structures like chimneys and attics if accessible.

Having a bat problem is quite tricky to deal with, especially if you have a large colony residing. In most states, bats are protected so it is illegal to kill them. Furthermore, bat traps aren’t usually effective. Fortunately, there are other effective means of removing bats. In this article, we’re going to examine the processes involved.

Bat Removal Process

Effective bat removal is dependent on accounting for a variety of factors like the species of bats, size of the colony, number of entry points, and weather. The processes in bat removal include:

1) Full Inspection

A full inspection of the building will help to determine exactly how the bats are gaining access to your property. A full inspection is quite difficult as bats can get in through holes as small as 3/8 of an inch. Bats often get in through high points so ladder work is necessary. The presence of bat droppings on the corner of the roof is an indication that they might be in there.

2) Determine Bat Species and Colony Size

Once their location is pinpointed, identify the species of the bat. This is important as different bat species have different birthing and hibernating seasons. If the colony size is large, removal can be more difficult. This is because not all of them might go out at night. Similarly, if it’s their birthing season, lots of pups (babies) will remain there for as long as two to four months, which is when they can fly.

3) Perform a Full Bat Exclusion

Bat trapping and repellents are not effective. That’s why exclusion is favored. Exclusion is the process of letting bats fly out of the building without having a way to fly back in. This is achieved through one- way exclusion devices. Identifying their current exit holes is challenging because they change it as the season progresses. An exit hole littered with droppings, brown staining, and odor might not be currently active.

Care should be taken when dealing with bats as 25 percent of wild bats are carriers of rabies. Bats infected with rabies are usually unable to fly due to their sickness. Some bats also carry severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Henipavirus. Therefore, success requires adequate experience. Coupled with the legalities surrounding bat removal, it is best to engage the service of a professional bat removal service.

4) Seal Up Entry Points

After exclusion, potential entry points should be sealed to prevent reentry. Most of the sealing is done while the bats are still inside, as only the primary exit hole is left for the bats to escape from. The sealing material is dependent on the type of roof involved. Sealants may be suitable in some areas. In other areas, bolting a metal fascia to the concrete might be the optimal approach.

5) Decontamination

Bat droppings or guano can get infected with fungi, posing a health hazard. It can also encourage the growth of mold which can potentially cause histoplasmosis in humans. Furthermore, their remnants can attract insects like cockroaches and leave a foul smell. Therefore, it is important to destroy the organic matters and deodorize the infected space through decontamination.

bat removal

Damage That Bats Do to Your Home or Building

Bats making their roost in your home should usually not be a problem, and often their presence is unnoticeable: bats do not cause structural damage, like damage to insulation on wiring, because they do not need to make nests and because they do not have ever-growing teeth. In fact, most of the work their teeth do is involved in either grooming themselves or hunting insects. Additionally, bats rarely stay in one place all year round, though they tend to return to the same place every year for a season, which can cause problems, and potentially lead to wear and tear where they roost.

Unlike with other pests, bat poop (known as guano) tends to pose few health risks on its own, as it is a dry substance mostly made of ground-up, indigestible insect parts. However, guano that has been on a surface for a while may pose respiratory health risks, as bacteria and mildew become ingrained in whatever material the guano rests on. This can often necessitate costly and inconvenient removal of entire layers of insulation, wood beams, and floorboards. Additionally, as bats poop around 20-30 times a day, the sheer quantity of guano can be a structural risk, and over a long time, lead to attics caving in, especially if the guano seeps into any load-bearing drywall. 

Nevertheless, a bat infestation often does not get worse over time: female bats have a maximum of one offspring a year, meaning that any bat colony that is not causing trouble at the moment is unlikely to cause trouble in the near future.

Among the most unpleasant side effects of living with bats is the smell: bat guano, fur grease, urine, and bats themselves sometimes produce an unpleasant smell, though there are conflicting accounts regarding this. Some bats emit odors when feeding or when under stress, but many bat species sport faint—if any—scents.

It is far more likely that bats will pose a health risk, rather than a physical hazard through structural damage. Bat guano is sometimes known to cause a fungal lung infection known as histoplasmosis, and bats bring with them a host of parasites including mites, ticks, and fleas, which may infest your home alongside the bats and infect you with parasitic diseases like Lyme disease or viral encephalitis. Because of this, having the right safety equipment at hand is important when decontaminating a bat-infested attic once the bats have left. As a dedicated wildlife removal service, we at A+ Animal Solutions will be able to procure the personnel and equipment necessary to safely restore an attic to working order. 

A more likely risk posed by bats is the risk of rabies: around 0.5% of North American bats carry rabies. Rabies in bats is only transmissible through bites, scratches, or bat saliva making contact with mucous membranes like the eyes and mouth. Hence, guano and bat urine cannot transmit rabies, meaning that unless you are handling bats directly, the likelihood of you catching rabies is low. However, there is a chance that a loose, rabid bat makes it from your attic or roof void into your living space and bites you, a bite which most people miss. In fact, nearly all human deaths caused by rabies in the US are the result of rabies bites, as it is difficult to tell when you have been bitten by a bat.

bat removal

How to Remove Bats From Attic?

There’s something deeply unpleasant about having wild animals somewhere inside your home, particularly up in your attic. The noises that keep you up at night, and the sheer hidden nature of most attics make this job gnarly, and highly unpleasant. Still, if you suspect wild animals on your property, the best thing to do is remove them as quickly as possible, to minimize the damage. You see, the longer a bat is left up in your attic, the more damage it can do, and you surely don’t want that. So if you’re pretty sure you’ve got bats living up there, what are you waiting for?

The truth is, bats can be tricky to catch on to. Since they’re nocturnal and airbound, they can move about without causing much ruckus. In many cases, the bats had been living inside the attic for weeks before anyone caught on, thanks to their fairly quiet nature. In fact, the only reliable sign of a bat infestation is the squeaking sound they make when communicating.

So how can you remove them from your attic?

  • Attempt bat exclusion.

If you’ve got bats, a good way to go is a bat exclusion device. The way this works is you fit a tube or cone device over the bat’s entry hole, which will then allow the bat to go out, but not to come back in. bat exclusion can be fairly efficient if you can find their entry point (which can be tricky, since bats can squeeze through tiny spaces).

One issue with bat exclusion devices is that it does not work for baby bats. And since the bats nesting inside human homes in the first place are often mothers with young babies, this might not really solve your problem. It would simply separate the mother from the babies, and leave them to die horribly.

  • Try bat deterrents.

Bats have weak eyes, at least by our standards (they actually have really good eyesight, which allows them to see in the dark, but not do very well under bright lights), and delicate hearing. This is why sound or light deterrents are quite popular. These special commercial bat deterrents are motion-activated and emit a sharp sound, or beam of light when an animal is nearby, thus scaring it.

Repeated strong lights or sounds near their nest can determine bats to flee the premises, though once again, not the baby bats, which may mean trouble later on.

Did you know? Bats are actually protected by law in many states, since they are considered beneficial for the environment, as a large part of their diet consists of harmful insects. As such, they are killing bats or leaving baby bats to die on your property can carry serious legal repercussions, which is why it’s always wise to educate yourself on local laws beforehand.

  • Hire a pro.

Since bat removal can be quite tricky, both physically and legally, your best bet would probably be to just hire a professional wildlife removal team, and trust them to get rid of the problem for you. In some cases, depending on local regulations, they may not actually be able to do anything, legally, in which case you will just have to wait for the bats to grow sufficiently and leave on their own. 

But mostly, it’s best to leave the job to someone with the necessary skill and experience to do it.

  • Seal and clean up.

Whatever you do, after the bats have been safely removed, you want to make sure you seal their entrypoint, or else you’re just inviting more trouble. Similarly, you also want to make sure to thoroughly clean and disinfect the premises, since bats carry some pretty serious diseases.