Tag Archives: bat removal

Hall of Horror

I don’t know if you’ve ever been to a Halloween party, or a haunted house. But if you have, you’ve probably at some point at another been through what I call a haunted hallway. What that means is that there is an alley or hallway that is decorated like a haunted house. Meant to scare you in a short amount of time, these little rooms are jam packed with your worst fears. Now for many people these only occur during the Halloween season, and they end when you exit the hallway. For me, the hallway was year round, and it didn’t end until I faced my worst fear.
Now many of you are probably thinking, what does she mean? Does she have a permanent haunted hallway in her house? The answer is no. Or, at least not one of my own creation. My haunted hallway is the hallway in the back of my house that has bats living in the walls. I’m not sure if you’ve ever come face to face with a bat, but believe me when I say that it is the most terrifying experience I’ve ever had. Imagine, one day you are innocently doing your laundry when all the sudden a flying black mass, infected with all sorts of diseases, soars into your face. I know, not the most pleasant image. Now imagine that happening every time you walk down that hallway and you’ll understand where I’m coming from.
I’d been in contact with my local animal control specialist for months, trying to fix the problem in a way that would prevent them from coming back. Lucky for me, the man I hired was the right man for the job! He walked me through every step of the process and he answered every question I asked. He was able to get all the bats out and after words he cleaned up the spaces in the walls. He made sure that every nook and cranny was secured to keep this from happening ever again. I don’t know what I would’ve done without him!

Bats Love Tight Quarters

Charte Oak, Iowa

“I have had four bats in the house and can hear another one in the ceiling, i’m not sure where they are getting in at and would like them gone. Our house is a two-story house downstairs there is a porch, pantry/store room, bedroom, bathroom, dining/toy room (for grandkids), kitchen & living room. Upstairs (which is closed off from the main floor) is a bedroom, closet & store room. We have had bats before but only 1 or 2 at a time.”

If you ever have bats that get into your house, try to stay out of the house and stay at a friend or relatives house until the problem is taken care of because bats can carry rabies, and if you get bit, you will need to be on rabies shots. It would be wise to get rabies shots because you may never know if you have been bitten or not. If a bat ever does get into your house, it would be good to wear leather gloves, carefully try to catch the bat, and put it in a glass container. Then you want to freeze it and take it to the health department to get it tested for rabies.

Bats can get into small cracks and crevices. If you are noticing bats getting inside of a structure, it is important to get the problem fixed immediately before more and more bats start using your house as a hotel. There may be cases where bats are just roosting or hanging around or above your porch or deck to digest their food. Know that bat urine and bat guano is not good to be tracking into your house, let alone having it get on you or breathing it in. It would be wise to get your house inspected to see if bats could be living inside the structures of your home.

Bats in Weber County Utah

bat_wings

 

It’s no surprise to Weber County, Utah residents that bats live in the area.  They are often to be seen in the night sky, flitting around silently, changing directions quickly as they chase after their meals.  Bats in Weber County do their best to keep the mosquito population down as well as preying on all different kinds of bugs, flying or not.  They’ve even been known to carry off crickets, centipedes and other large bugs.  At most recent counts, Utah has eighteen species of bats, and Weber County bats do their best to keep the county from being overrun with bugs.

Usually bats will roost in places such as caves, mines, rotting logs, but often bats discover warmer, more convenient places in which to roost or even nest.  Breeding season is coming up, for most bat species, and that’s the spring.  They’ll happily roost or breed in attics, chimneys, abandoned buildings, inside building walls, behind shutters, under eaves, and anywhere else that provides a relatively protected environment close to food sources.  You may not even know you have a bat or a colony of bats living inside your home or apartment until one makes its way inside your living room or bedroom or kitchen.

Do Weber County bats carry rabies?  Usually, no, but the chances are high enough that you absolutely should NEVER touch a bat.  If it bites a person or animal, seek medical attention immediately.  Keep your animals up to date on their rabies shots.  People who handle bats may not even realize the bat’s tiny claws have scratched them, so always seek medical attention if you have come into contact with a bat.  And, if you come across an active bat during the day time, it may be sick or diseased.  Keep children and pets away from it.

Discovering a bat or a colony of bats in your house or other buildings will come as a shock.  You may have a very clean house with a well-kept yard, and yet still have a bat problem.  The safest course of action is to contact us to send a professional to your home to remove the bat or bats.  Trying to remove a bat yourself may result in being scratched or bitten by it as it will be terrified and try to get away or defend itself.    Bats are protected under the law, as well, especially a nesting colony of bats, and our professionals know exactly how to handle the situation legally and safely.  A professional will also be able to safely clean the bat droppings from your building and even install materials to prevent bats from returning to your building.

It’s fun and interesting to watch Weber County bats flying around at night, but make sure it’s at a distance.  Up close and personal bat encounters can result in a trip to the emergency room.  And, if you discover one or more bats in your building, contact us to remove the bats and keep you and yours safe.

Bat in the House

I recently dealt with a bat in the house, and had a whole adventure with it before finally calling Allstate Animal Control to get rid of the bat and make sure I didn’t have any more living in the attic or chimney or anywhere else.  Before this all happened, I had no fear of bats.  I saw them in the zoo.  I caught glimpses of them flying around the nearby park when I was running at twilight.  I know they keep insect populations down, especially mosquitoes, which are a real problem around here.  I know they are pretty amazing animals.  So, I never had a fear of them.

Until I stepped on one in my bare feet.

Yep, that was pretty awful.

It was mid afternoon.  I’d just come home from class and I was getting ready for work.  I’m trying to get my bachelors degree, and then I want a masters in business administration.  Between work, school and my social life, I keep myself pretty busy, and I don’t spend a lot of time at home.  So, I didn’t know I had a bat problem.  I had grabbed a bowl of cereal for lunch (don’t judge me), and was taking it back to my room so I could eat while looking for my shoes, since I didn’t have a lot of time before work.  I turned the corner into my room quickly and as soon as I stepped down, I knew something was terribly wrong.  Something hairy, squirmy and very angry was wriggling beneath my foot.  I pulled my foot up, and this black shadow flew straight up to the ceiling, bumped around up there, and then settled out of sight on the top of my book shelf.  I didn’t even have breath left to scream, and I desperately needed to disinfect my foot, make sure I didn’t have a bat bite, and probably hire a hypnotherapist to make me permanently forget the memory of stepping on a bat.

I certainly didn’t want to investigate to see whether the bat was still alive.  I pulled the bedroom door shut, washed my feet about twenty times, cleaned up the spilled cereal, pulled on a different pair of shoes from the downstairs closet, and headed out to work.  During my break, I called United Wildlife Control so they could send a professional out to get rid of the bat in my house, and check to make sure I didn’t have a bat colony lurking around anywhere else.

Now, of course, I’m terrified of bats.  I’ve gone running in the park a few times since then, and every time I see one out of the corner of my eye, innocently swooping around in the air to catch itself some dinner, I stifle a shriek, start to shake, and my foot involuntarily curls up.  I’m sure my reaction will lessen as time goes by, but in the meantime, I think I’ll join a gym and run on a treadmill.

Get Rid of Bat

bat removal

“Myron, I think we need to get rid of a bat.”  I heard my wife call from the other room. She sounded so nonchalant, like it was the most normal thing in the world to yell to me across our home, starting a conversation about bats.  She might as well have been asking me if I wanted turkey or roast beef in my sandwich.  Admittedly, I was a little confused.  After nearly fifty years of marriage, we’d never had a bat in the house.  A mouse problem once, but that was a long time ago.

Maybe I misheard her.  “What’d you say, Jane?  Do you need anything?”  I called out.

“A bat.  A BAT.  I think we need to get rid of a bat!”  Her voice was a little more insistent and a lot more irritated.  She hates it when I don’t hear her correctly.  She thinks I ignore her sometimes on purpose.  If I’m completely honest with myself, sometimes I do.

Sighing, I put down my tools.  During my working years, I had dreams of my retired life.  It involved a lot of golf, a lot of time watching football, and plenty of time in my wood shop.  So far, I spent the majority of my time finishing the basement and turning it into basically a second home.   I’d built a kitchen and living room down there, a couple of bedrooms and an office.  It had been my wife’s idea, and so I grumbled about it a lot.  Truth is, I was enjoying myself.

But, now I had to stop, once again, and head back upstairs to where my wife sat on her easy chair, playing Sudoku.  Her health hadn’t been so good this last year, which meant she wasn’t able to spend her retirement years traveling, as she’d wanted.

I made it upstairs and saw her looking up at the wall above the mantle.  “A bat, Myron.  I said we need to get rid of a bat.”

Looking up, I saw the bat on the wall.  At first, it looked like a medium-sized smudge, but as I walked closer to the fireplace, I could easily see my wife was right.  We needed to get rid of the bat.  I was impressed that she was still sitting there, doing her Sudoku, in the presence of this creature.  She hadn’t been this calm when we had a mouse problem.  The years had mellowed us both out.

I had no idea how to get rid of the bat, though.  My mind went through the possibilities.  At best, I might scare it out of the house.  More likely, though, I’d end up scaring it into a witless flight pattern around our heads, and possibly hurt myself in the process.  Plus, I really wanted to get back to my basement project.  Then, it dawned on me.  Call Allstate Animal Control.  They’d send someone out to get rid of the bat for me, and my wife and I could go back to our respective retirement activities.  Good plan.

Bat Removal Salt Lake

get rid of bats

We literally just moved here, and already I have to look for bat removal in Salt Lake.  Ugh.  Yesterday morning, we finished packing up the moving truck from our home in Lincoln, Nebraska, and sent it on its way to our new home in Salt Lake City, Utah.  We filled our car up with an expensive tank full of gas, stopped by to say a final farewell to some friends, picked up some road trip food, and started the twelve hour drive to our new neighborhood.  As usual, we left a couple hours later than we had planned.  The goodbyes took longer and were more difficult, filled with promises to keep in touch with emails and phone calls.  Then, we had to pick up our last paychecks and close our local bank account.  Once we were finally on the highway, it was bittersweet.  We were excited to get to the next chapter in our life, and sad to leave the place we’d called home since we’d gotten married.

We had struggled the first couple years of our marriage.  Money had been really tight, and we had tried to make ends meet by working ourselves to death.  I worked as a video editor for a local news station from 4 am to noon, after which I’d work at my receptionist job until 6 pm.  My husband was finishing up his bachelors degree in computer science during the day and worked as a security guard at night.  He didn’t get home until ten at night.  Since I had to get up at 3 am, I was already asleep, so I’d wake up just enough to mumble an “I love you,” before falling back asleep.

So, after he finished up his degree, he went job-hunting, and found this new job that offered him more than my two paychecks combined.  It was a no-brainer, even though it meant leaving home behind us and creating a new life in a different state.

We drove up to the cute little bungalow we’d found during a previous house-hunting trip late last night.  The moving truck is supposed to arrive here sometime in the afternoon, so we figured we’d just haul our sleeping bags up to our new bedroom and crash on the floor for what was left of the rest of the night.

Early in the morning, the sun came streaming through our east-facing window, and I woke up vowing to get the darkest window shades I could find as soon as I could find them.  Something felt a little “off” to me as I sat up in bed, but I figured it was just because I wasn’t familiar yet with the sounds of my new home.  Then, something small and wet dropped on my husband’s head.  I looked up, and saw about 20 bats hanging from the ceiling.  One of them had just dropped a nasty little package onto my husband.

So, instead of worrying about where I’m going to place the couch or which dishes will go into which kitchen cabinet, I get to find a good bat removal service in Salt Lake.  I’ve gone too long without a good night’s sleep with my husband next to me.  Salt Lake bat removal will get rid of those bats and let me finally, finally, have a full night’s sleep in the same bed with my husband.

Bat Control

get rid of bats

I wonder how much bat control I need.  We’re buying a house, and the inspection turned up an attic full of bat feces.  Bat droppings are all over the place, but we haven’t been able to find a single bat in the attic, or anywhere else in the place.

I really love this house.  I researched the area with my agent, and we’re in a really good school district, we’re within walking distance to the grocery store and other shopping areas, it’s a quiet neighborhood with other kids who are close in age to my own two children, and the house itself is perfect for us.  After my divorce, we agreed to sell our old house and split the proceeds.  Of course, some child support came from my husband’s portion, but other than that, it was even-steven.  I was happy to get out of that old house, anyway.  It held too many bad memories for me, and the neighbors had been really good friends of both me and my husband.  It was getting awkward to see them or chat with them, because they either sided with my husband, or spoke badly of him in front of my kids, or they just looked at me with pity.  I had to get out and get a fresh start.  So, even though we ended up moving into this much smaller home, it is the perfect size for the three of us, and a new neighborhood, new job and new school for the kids were just what we needed.

The house is small, but it still has enough bedrooms and bathrooms to make all of us happy.  I love the style of it, too.  It has kind of a French country feel to it.  I was honest with my agent when we were putting in a bid.  I really, really wanted this house.  Of course, I also really, really needed it to be within my price range.

So, when the inspection turned up a few issues, like the fact that the house needed bat control, my agent and I decided to use it as a negotiation aid.  I’d pay for the bat control if the seller would pay closing costs.  The seller accepted, and we are scheduled to close on the home in a little over a week.

I’ve been calling around for bat control quotes, and finally settled on Allstate Animal Control.  They are nation-wide and have contractors right here.  Plus, they will clean up and sanitize the attic in addition to the bat control.  The guy I talked to was really knowledgeable about the bats in our area, and had some good guesses about which kind of bats had roosted up there.  He also told me that, when they came out to do the bat control and clean-up, he’d inspect the home, remove any bats he finds, and seal up the entrance-points.  All for one very reasonable fee.  I was really impressed with their bat control knowledge.

Now, I just have to focus on packing everything up, closing on the new home, and moving me and the kids in.  Fresh starts are wonderful, especially right after a difficult time.

San Diego County Exterminator

“See?  This is why we should have called the San Diego County exterminator instead of trying to get rid of the bats by ourselves.  We had no idea what we were doing!”

“But, the internet said you could exclude the bats and the problem would be solved.”

I love my husband, but he’s a constant do-it-yourselfer, without a lot of expertise.  He has a huge honey-do list that he’s written for himself.  I don’t have to give him any projects to do, because he’s constantly finding them.  He’s great at changing the oil in my car, taking care of the yard, keeping hinges oiled in the house, and a thousand other little things, and I’m grateful to him.  However, he does have a problem.  He doesn’t know how to do a lot of the projects he takes on.  He loves to tell me, “I’ll learn as I go.”  And, that’s why there’s a crack in the pipe under the sink, a basement that’s been “nearly finished” for over a year now, and a partially reupholstered couch in our front room.

Occasionally, he’ll get instructions on some internet site or another, but he only skims the article and doesn’t read all the way through.  So, when we found bats roosting in the attic a few months ago, he wouldn’t let me call the San Diego County exterminator or anyone else to help us with our problem.  He got online, said “Hmm mmm” a couple of times, and went to work excluding a colony of bats.

Now, I did some research of my own, and quickly learned that we most likely had a maternity colony roosting in the attic.  If the bats were excluded improperly or at the wrong time, we could really harm the animals as well as unintentionally causing a bigger bat problem for ourselves.  Plus, I realized there were state and federal laws that protect bats and govern when and how you can remove them.  I didn’t read through the laws myself, but begged my husband to contact the San Diego County exterminator at least for some advice.  He told me not to worry, he’d take care of it.

Sure enough, over the last couple of weeks, we’d both noticed a smell that was getting stronger and stronger.  It took us a while to locate the source, and unfortunately my husband discovered some new projects he wanted to undertake while we searched.  Finally, though, it was clear the smell was strongest in the part of the attic where the bats had roosted.

It was worse than I expected, though.  A few baby bats lay dead and rotting on the floor of the attic.  Bat urine and feces hadn’t been cleaned up, so it had dried and stained the wall and insulation.  I didn’t look any closer – I didn’t want to think too much about maggots or anything else that was crawling over that mess.  I think my husband finally saw the look on my face, because he immediately went downstairs to call the San Diego County exterminator for help.

Get Rid of Bats

bat removal

I have to wonder what bats must think, when we try to get rid of bats with tools that were meant for playing sports or cleaning the house.

Look, I know that sometimes entire bat colonies get in an attic, or bats roost in a chimney or people have bat colonies around their house.  But, a lot of times, it’s just one single bat that got curious or accidentally flew in a house.  Once inside, it finds a nice place to hang out, like high up on a wall, or in a fireplace, behind a curtain or on the back of a chair.  It might be a little bit worried about finding its way back outside again, but it’s pretty confident that it’ll be able to find its way back out, once it’s had a nap or pulled its wits together.

And, then, some human innocently walks into the darkened room and flips on a light switch.  Still, the bat might not move from its spot.  It’s comfortable, it’s safe, and it sees no reason why it should have to move.  So, it hangs out there for a while.  The person wanders around, doing whatever people do in that particular room.  But, suddenly, the person glances at a random spot on the wall, and sees a dark smudge just hanging there.  Somewhere, deep in that person’s brain, a fearful voice whispers, “It’s a bat,” and then there’s screaming, and running, and door slamming, and all of a sudden there’s several people all trying to get rid of the bat.

The things people use to get rid of bats, though!  It’s like, they grab whatever is at hand, whether it’s an empty box, a blanket, a tennis racket or the long, dusty, fluffy thing at the end of a pole that they use to clean off ceiling fans.

A whole chase ensues.  The bat flies frantically around the room, barely avoiding faces, heads and windows as it desperately looks for an escape route.  Objects are smashed or simply knocked over as the people alternate between trying to get rid of the bat to running away screaming to ducking and cursing.

And, what must the bat think?  It was happily minding its own business when it’s awoken and chased.  It is not a greased pig at a fair, it is not an escaped bull in a china shop.  It is simply a small bat taking a rest from looking for dinner.  Now, it’s trying to avoid getting its wings smashed in a butterfly net or by a cardboard box while flying around looking for a way out of this mess.

Let cooler heads prevail.  Call a professional to get rid of bats for you.  Tennis rackets are for playing tennis, blankets are to keep you warm, and ceiling fan dusters are for . . . well, you know.

Bat Control

“What’s he doing?”

“He says it’s bat control.”

“Seriously?  He looks . . . he looks like he’s just crazy.”

“I know, right?  But, he says there’s a bat in his dorm room and he’s taking care of bat control by himself.”

The boy in question was a freshman, and was dancing, or jerking around, with a sheet in front of his window at night in a first-floor dorm room.  He’d opened up the window, which is gave all of us a nice view of what was going on.  So far, no one had seen a bat, but this was a lot better than the junk reality show playing in the common room, so a small crowd had gathered on the sidewalk and grass outside his window.

“So, if he’s doing bat control, where’s the bat?  All I see is the dude and his sheet.  Weird.”

“No, no!  I see it.”

Bat hanging from a ceiling.
A bat hanging from the ceiling of a freshman dorm room.
(Artwork by Sharon Davis. Contact us for her contact info.)

A bunch of us leaned forward, some squinting, trying to catch a glimpse of the bat in the room.

“There!  There it is!  D’ya see it?”

The freshman had stopped waving his bed sheet for just a moment, long enough for the bat to settle back down in the corner of the wall.  It was big enough to make some of the girls screech and fall back behind some of the guys.  Its pursuer realized he had an audience, and turned to address us, enjoying his moment.

“It’s just a big brown bat, is all.  Dunno how it got in here, but I’m gonna try to make it fly back out the window.”

At this, some of the more squeamish girls fell back even further.

“Dude, use a racket or something!”

“Do you have one I could use?”

“No.  But, I’m sure a sheet ain’t gonna do it.”  The boy just shrugged.

“What if it bites him?” someone asked.

“It’s not gonna bite me, unless I try to hold it in my hands.  I just want to get it out of my room so it doesn’t crap all over everything.”

“Ewwwww,” someone muttered.

Someone else gasped, and the boy whirled around to recommence his herky-jerky-sheet-dance as the bat swooped around the room.  He assumed a bull-fighter’s stance when the bat flew lower through the air.

“I’m tellin’ ya, a sheet’s not gonna do a thing.  You gotta have something like a tennis racket or something,” the self-proclaimed bat control expert asserted, though no one was listening to him.  Everyone was too busy shouting out pointers to the freshman dancing in the window.

“On your left!”

“Up, up, up, up!!!”

“Don’t try to catch it, just scare it out the window.”

This last piece of advice earned the speaker a withering glare from Bat-Boy, as he was now being called.

And, then, suddenly, it was over.  The bat finally swooped out the window and zoomed far out of sight.  Everyone, except for the racket-lover, broke out into spontaneous applause and the boy took a bow, closed his window and his shutters, and everyone drifted off, talking about that night’s excitement.