Bat Patrol

The saga continues. Yesterday I called City Animal Control. The nice lady listened to my tale of woe, then said sincerely, "That's terrible. I hope you can figure out how to get rid of them." I said, "Did I get the wrong number? Isn't this animal control?" She said, "Yes, we're animal control; we just don't do bats. Try the conservation office. "

I called the conservation office. The nice lady there was very helpful. She said that we could hire someone to take care of it, but it would be VERY expensive. We could do the same things they would do. She said to go out at dusk and watch to see where they come out when they go out for their night job. She said it would most likely be up high, around the eaves or chimney. I wandered around looking up until my neck was killing me and I was being eaten alive by mosquitoes (those dang bats aren't earning their keep!) Didn't see anything.

Another suggestion was to make their roosting place unpleasant by turning on bright lights, playing loud music, hanging things that would flutter and turning on a fan. I did all that in the attic and in the basement, then went to bed.

When I got up this morning, I gingerly crept into the basement (amidst the head-banging music) to see if it had worked. I saw 4 bats (photo above) by the door. The one in the foreground is a dead one that's been there a few days.

We think we have figured out where they're getting in, though. Probably the chimney that goes through the attic all the way to the basement. So tonight we'll try watching the chimney and see if they fly out. I'm also going to make a "bat extrusion device" out of PVC pipe. The conservation agent told me how to do that.