If you have ever encountered a colony of bats in or around your home, you’d be surprised at the mess and smell they can leave behind; and it piles up. The piles can get so massive and distinct, that it makes you wonder how much these little guys can eat and how long they’ve been in your home.
Honestly, having bats in your attic is no laughing matter! Bats that are harbouring in an attic, or even in an outdoor contraption, can transmit a respiratory diseases called Histoplasmosis where exposure to mass quantities of bat guano over a long period of time can become detrimental to a person’s health. Histoplasmosis in smaller doses can affect humans with weakened immune systems, and so avoiding the harbouring of a colony of bats in and around your home becomes important business.
Removing the bats was one job, but the cleanup, prevention and decontamination was another. Removing bats takes a special process that involves extra care not to hurt them but once that’s done, it’s what’s left behind that can become the real trouble.
In Ontario bats hibernate during the winter season, but once it becomes consistently warm out, they start coming out of their colonies where you can see more and more of them at night. Some bats like the male Big Brown Bat, are solitary and so when they’re found in homes the damage isn’t usually too extensive.
The females on the other hand like to live in colonies and when they come out during warm springs and in the summer, their existence isn’t usually a secret and the leave a lot behind to make their presence known.
A thorough inspection by an accredited wildlife removal company is the best way to determine if you have a bat problem. If you do, they’ll be able to quarantine the area, safely remove the bats, decontaminate and secure the area’s entry points from further intrusions.
There are quite a few species of bats living in Ontario (8 according to the following chart) and during our many years of service involving bats, we’ve removed quite a few of them.
The following chart from the same link above, lists out the species we see in this province. I’ve taken the time to highlight the bat species’ names and the column for Ontario.
As a company, since we first started removing and controlling bat colonies we’ve come across the Big Brown bat and the Little Brown bat most often.
Plus bat boxes encourage bats to be near your property, but not in your house. They’ll also help with mosquitos as bats eat up to 1000 mosquitos an hour. Bats are a natural pest control.
Bat infestations can be a hard blow to deal with like this Scotland home owner learned but in the end, and by choosing the right company, you can have your attic back up to code, repaired and cleaned up in no time. You just need to know who to call.
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