Tag Archives: dead bats

A Blast from the Past

When you buy an older house you expect it to come with quirks like maybe it’s haunted or the doors are on backwards; we expected these kinds of quirks, but we were not expecting bats in the attic.  This house was built in the 1800’s and the attic is actually HUGE, so in reality we were prepared for the possibility of there being bats in the attic so we had an inspection done to check the house for any kinds of wildlife problems.  The inspector came out an hour later and gave us the all clear. No bat problems anywhere.

Two weeks later and here we are.  Six days ago I went to the basement to put some boxes away and I found a dead bat on top of the shelves; three days I had to pull a dead bat out from behind the stove when I started to smell something heating up as I cooked dinner.  From six days ago until now, I have found 8 bats dead in my house.  I thought to myself, ‘this has to be a coincidence, the house doesn’t have a bat problem!’ I started to dig around to find out if these dead bats were just old or if we were dealing with something larger altogether.  I didn’t have any luck finding any live bats and I was starting to become more hopeful that there wasn’t a bat problem at all, until I got to the attic.  I cracked open the door and shone my flashlight around the large space; I could see that there was definitely guano covering the floor so I moved my light up towards the ceiling and I almost screamed.  What had to be more than 100 bats were hanging peacefully from the rafters.

I am so unbelievably upset!  Not only are there bats in the attic of my house, but the inspector that was supposed to look for the bats was either incompetent or he lied straight to my face!  There is no way that a problem this extreme just happened in the last two weeks, especially since we actually moved in a week ago and we started finding bats immediately!  Okay, what I need is to first take a deep breath, and second is some serious help.  I need someone to get these bats out of the attic before I lose my mind and burn this house down.  I have been patiently dealing with the quirks of my (new) old house, but I cannot handle this without some professional help; be it a therapist or bat control. I need SOMEONE.

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.