Bat Eviction

Today we started bat eviction in our house.  After having two in our house so far this summer, we decided it was time to find them a new home.  I have a love hate relationship with the little buggers.  I love that they eat the bugs, but they really freak me out.  Watching them fly out of the side of my house is kind of cool in a "I really wish they were flying out of something other than my house" kind of way.  Apparently I get this from my mother.  

Why not kill them?  Because they eat mosquitos.  And they are protected as colonies.  I didn't do much research into the protection level around here, but let's assume killing them is illegal.  We want them to eat the billions of mosquitos anyway.  Here's a quick google factoid- a single bat can eat up to 1200 mosquitos in an hour!  

So step one of our evacuation plan-  find them somewhere else to live.  I don't want to get them out of one spot in the house only to have them move in again!  Thankfully I have a handy hubby who whipped up this amazing new home for our unwanted tenants.   

Do you want to build a bat house?  Here is a link- http://www.batcon.org/index.php/get-involved/install-a-bat-house/subcategory.html?layout=subcategory

Step two-  Hubby installed some DIY one-way screens.  The bats can get out, but hopefully not back in.  This was a big deal.  We had to wait until the end of maternity season to make sure we weren't trapping babies in the house.  I didn't want to take chances of any angry momma bats trying to fight their way into our house to get the babies.  Eek. Judging by the number of bats I just watched fly out of my house, I'd say the babies got out.  Although I did read that bat colonies can have hundreds of bats living in them.  It worried me to think about how many could be living in our "well-developed" colony.  Because I know they've lived here longer than we have! 

Step 3- Turn the light on!  Bats don't like light so we got a spotlight to shine on their entry point after they've all left for the night.  If the screen does its job, this step probably isn't necessary.  But we aren't messing around here.  We want to keep them out!  After a couple nights of "daylight" the bats are supposed to be deterred from heading to that area for housing.  Although the lights will attract more bugs, so I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that this doesn't backfire!

  

I'll be on bat watch again tomorrow night to make sure there isn't any bat chirping or activity coming from our roof.  

And if you are like me and have trouble sleeping after thinking so much about bats, here's a cute picture of Cameron and Pepper.