What you should do if you have a bat in the house

Safely remove bats from your house and help them out where they belong

If they make their way into a house,

bats are often seen on drapes or curtains. Wade Tregaskis

Attics are the ultimate hang-out for bats because they provide the high temperatures and undisturbed environments that they need for resting, giving birth and rearing young. Baby bats are born in late spring and become mobile and interested in braving the great outdoors around the end of summer.

However young bats can sometimes take a wrong turn and end up flying into the living areas of your home. If this happens, first of all, don’t panic. Bats are basically harmless and they do not really want to be in your house. Contrary to popular belief, they will not fly at you and try to get in your hair.

If you open outside doors and windows and turn out the lights, the bat will find the way outside most of the time. If it has landed, you can put a box over the bat and slide a piece of cardboard underneath. Once contained, the bat can be released safely outside, but be sure to put the bat on a tree limb since they cannot fly from the ground up.

Little brown bat (Myotis lucifugus)

in summer roost - the eaves of a house

Bats can enter attics through openings as small as a nickel and an experienced eye is best in determining their point of entrance. Call the professionals, who can install the appropriate exclusion material and one-way doors that let them out but not back in to your house. Once the house is secure you can put up a bat house outside to give the bats alternative roosting quarters.

Bats are extremely beneficial mammals, eating up to three times their body weight in insects each night. They are one of the few flying nighttime predators of mosquitoes and other insects. (One bat can eat 4,000 mosquitoes in one night!)

Source: What to Do About Bats

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