What You Need to Know About Bats if You Have Some Around Your Property

Posted on March 17, 2022 by virginia

Bats are an incredible species of mammal, and we are lucky to have them as a part of our surrounding Eco-system. Their high metabolic needs and diverse diets significantly impact our ecological communities by playing a vital role in pollination, seed dispersion, crop fertilization, insect control, protozoan hosting, ecotourism industries, and more. But where there are advantages, there are also disadvantages. If you have spotted bats around your property on a nightly basis, it is essential to better understand their behaviors so that you can better protect your home or business from bat damages and associated risks.

Continue reading to learn what you need to know about bats if you have them around your property.

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Nuisance Bats

Bats are common nuisances for home and business owners. They are attracted to dark, warm shelters to raise their young and hibernate through winter, including attics, crawl spaces, garages, sheds, roofs, and walls. They can enter through a crevice as tiny as 3/8^th inch, so it is easy for them to get inside a vulnerable structure. You can tell if you have bats in the house or around your property by looking for the signs. This includes hearing strange noises in the walls or attic at night, spotting animal droppings around windows or doors, smelling foul odors from attic or crawl space areas, and more.

Bat Damages

Bats can cause a long list of structural damages to a home, and the accumulation of their droppings can create an unsanitary, biohazardous environment. Furthermore, they pose a wide range of health risks since their guano can cause respiratory illnesses, and they may carry diseases and parasites like rabies, lice, mites, and more. Fortunately, several professional wildlife control companies offer restoration and decontamination services for damages caused by bats. They will remove the bats from the space using safe and humane methods, clean up the mess they made, sanitize the entire area, and restore any structural damages they caused from their stay.

Bats and Rabies

Many people wrongly assume that all bats have rabies. The truth is that bats are common carriers of the rabies virus, but that does not mean all bats are carriers, nor does it mean that carriers are infected. If a bat is rabid, you will be able to tell by a blood test, which can only be done correctly by a state’s Department of Health. A rabid bat is not likely to be a threat since they generally seek out isolation to die. In fact, bats that are not sick are not likely to attack either. They are more afraid of us than we are of them. It is very rare for one to bite or attack unless provoked. This is why regular vaccinations are so vital for pets.

Bat Removal and Control

To properly eliminate a bat problem, bats must first be removed, and then specific precautions must be taken to ensure they cannot reenter your home or building. There are many things you can do yourself to reduce the level of wildlife activity around your property, such as removing all food and water sources, including bird baths, squirrel feeders, pet food, gardens, and more. You can also install automatic motion lighting or ultrasonic sound machines, as well as, spread predatory urine or other non-toxic repellents around your yard. Just use water, ground hot pepper, and menthol oil to make a homemade b a t repellent.

Are you dealing with a nuisance bat problem in or around your property? Contact Virginia Bat Pros at 804-729-9097 for prompt and professional bat removal and control you can afford. We serve residential and commercial clients.

Frequently Asked Questions About Bat Infestations

Posted on November 8, 2021 by virginia

Nuisance bats are not something you want loitering around your home. Bats are known to cause extensive amounts of damage to both interior and exterior areas of a home or building. Since local bats are tiny, they can squeeze through an opening as small as 3/8ths of an inch! That means the smallest gap, crack, or opening is a wide open door for bats. They are best at gaining entry into attics but can also be found infesting areas like crawl spaces, garages, roofs, sheds, and more.

If you suspect that you have bats in the attic or a bat infestation problem on your property, review these frequently asked questions about bat infestations and bat damages to learn your options for remediation.

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Bat Infestation FAQS

What Kinds of Damage Do Bats Cause?

Bats cause a lot of damage, mostly with their droppings. Wherever they reside or roost, bats will leave behind urine, feces, and food debris. Floorboards, ceilings, walls, insulation, electrical wiring, and more will become saturated and stained overtime. They may also gnaw on electrical wiring, drywall, insulation, and more. On the exterior of a home, bats will leave behind an oily residue around their entry points. This oil comes from their fur and leaves behind black-ish brown stains that are indicative of a bat infestation. Bats can also damage roof shingles, siding, and gutters.

Where Do Bats Like to Hide Out?

The most common areas for bats to roost is hollowed trees, roofs, attics, crawl spaces, under porches, in garages, and in sheds. They prefer quiet, dark, and warm spaces. If they can find access to any of these areas, they will roost there for as long as they can.

How Many Bats Do I Have in the Attic?

The only way to know how many bats you have in your attic is to hire a professional critter control company in Virginia to diagnose the problem. However, it is helpful to understand that bats are not solitary mammals. So, where there is one or two bats, there are likely many more. Furthermore, you are likely to find bats in the attic over any other part of your house.

Is Bat Guano Dangerous?

Guano, or bat stool, can be a highly useful resource under the right circumstances. However, the accumulation of guano in your home can pose some serious health risks, making it quite dangerous indeed. Guano can grow fungal spores called Histoplasma capsulatum, which can cause a serious lung disease called Histoplasmosis.

Histoplasmosis is also known as “Cave disease”, “Darling’s disease”, “Ohio valley disease”, and “spelunker’s lung.” Histoplasma capsulatum fungal spores can become airborne and then inhaled by both people and pets. Guano can also develop and transmit viruses, bacteria, and parasites, which become airborne too.

How Can I Repair Bat Damages?

The only way to properly renovate damages caused by bats in the attic or other area of your house is to hire a professional Virginia bat removal and control company that provides wild animal damage cleanup and restoration services. In many cases, homeowners’ insurance policies cover bat damages to some extent, and many wildlife control companies accept and perform insurance claim work. They will cleanup, decontaminate, sanitize, fumigate, and repair the mess left behind.

Are you looking for safe and affordable bat infestation removal and attic cleaning service near you? Contact Virginia Bat Pros at 804-729-9097 for affordable bat damage cleanup and restoration in Richmond, VA and its surrounding counties. We serve residential and commercial properties.

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How to Check if You Have Bats in the Attic

Posted on February 19, 2021 by virginia

Bats are the only mammal in the world that can actually fly. Plus, they happen to be very tiny, and can fit into the smallest crevice or opening. For these reasons and more, bats are a common pest found roosting in attics, and they do a lot of damage. Bats will defecate and urinate all over the attic floorboards and walls, which can leak into the living quarters of a home and stain walls and ceilings. They will also rip through attic insulation, and pose health risks in the form of lung infections, parasites, and even deadly viruses.

If you are concerned that bats are living in your home, it is best to keep your eyes open for the common signs of a bat infestation. Continue reading to learn how to tell if you have bats in the attic, and what to do about it.

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Common Signs of Bats in the Attic

When bats are roosting in attics, they are often there for quite sometime before they are discovered because they can be virtually silent during the day when we are awake and active. But if you take a stroll around your property just after dusk, you might see or hear a different story. Bats have tell-tale sounds they make when they communicate, fly, and shuffle around, plus they leave behind a trail of destruction that can be seen and smelled. Be sure to conduct your inspection inside and outside, as bats in the attic can be detected from both points of interest.

Here is how to tell if you have bats in the attic:

► Squeaking/Chattering Noises
► Hearing Flapping and Shuffling Inside Walls
► Yellow-Brown Stains on Walls or Ceilings
► Foul/Lingering Odors
► Visible Guano Around Window Ledges and Doors
► Scratch Marks on Walls
► Stains Around Gaps or Openings

How to Best Confirm Your Bat Infestation Suspicions

When it comes to looking for signs of a bat infestation, it is best to trust the expert knowledge and skills of a licensed Virginia bat removal and control specialists for accurate information and service. Regardless of birds or bats, a nuisance wildlife infestation needs to be addressed immediately. Be sure to act fast as soon as you think you might have pests in the house!

Virginia Bat Removal and Clean Up for Bats in the Attic

Call Virginia Bat Pros at 804-729-9097 for the most trusted and affordable bat removal services for bats in the attic in Virginia. Our licensed bat removal specialists offer a wide range of residential and commercial bat extraction and exclusion services, including cleanup and restoration for bat infestations. We also offer 24 hour emergency service, free estimates, free advice, and more! Request a free estimate, today. We serve all of Virginia, including Richmond, Lynchburg, Charlottesville, Norfolk, Midlothian, Virginia Beach, and all of their surrounding areas.

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Common Damages Caused By Bats in the Attic

Posted on November 23, 2020 by virginia

If you have just one or two bats in the house, you are probably not going to have the need for extensive renovations. However, it is a fact that bats are not solitary animals, so where there’s some, there’s likely to be more. Finding just one or two bats in the attic means that the infestation has not yet had time to grow, which is a lucky scenario for any homeowner since this also means less damage has been done. If the colony goes unnoticed and has room to expand, a plethora of damages can occur in a short amount of time.

Continue reading to learn what types of structural damages bats tend to cause, and what you can do to prevent such damages to your Virginia home.

Common Damages From Bat Activity

► Drywall Damage

Bats, just like all other mammals, must expel their waste. This is the number one source of bat damage. Bat feces, also known as guano, are a hazard waste that can soil floorboards, ceilings, walls, electrical wiring, and attic insulation. Bat droppings can seep into all of the attic’s surroundings, and eventually make its way into the walls and ceilings of actual living quarters of the house. Not only does this stain drywall, it causes embarrassing and foul odors in the home. If these circumstances are terrible enough, bat infestations can also lead to parasite infestations, primarily bat mites, which are very similar to lice and equally transmissible to both people and pets.

► Roofing

Bats oftentimes find their way into wall voids and attic spaces through openings in the roof. Whether tile, asphalt shingles, or wood shake, bats only need about a 3/8ths an inch to fit through a hole. Loose or missing shingles are frequently to blame, but bats have also been known to peel back roof shingles or ply boards, and squeeze their way inside.

► Bat Diseases

The scariest risk posed by bat infestations in the attic are communicable bat diseases like Rabies. It is critical to your safety and the safety of everyone else in your home to never attempt bat removal on your own. Never try to touch, trap, catch, or kill a bat under any circumstances. As a protected species, not only is this illegal in your state, but it is also very dangerous for people, pets, and bats themselves.

Bat droppings also pose several health risks, such as histoplasmosis. Histoplasmosis is a potentially-fatal lung infection caused by the inhalation of Histoplasma fungal spores that grow in guano. These spores become airborne and travel through a home’s ductwork and can affect both people and pets. This infection is especially dangerous to elderly individuals and people with suppressed immune systems.

Hire Professional Bat Control Service

Whether you have one bat in the house or an entire colony of bats in the attic, a Virginia bat removal and control company will remove the bats, suggest methods to keep bats from returning in the future, and implement such services upon your request. They retain the latest technologies and innovative advancements in the industry to provide safe and humane bat extraction and exclusion services for both residential and commercial properties. In addition to getting rid of bats, they can also provide comprehensive bat cleanup and restoration services to correct the mess and damage they tend to leave behind.

Who to Call for Virginia Bat Control at an Affordable Price

Call Virginia Bat Pros at 804-729-9097 for safe and humane bat removal and control assistance in Old Dominion. We serve all of Virginia and its surrounding areas. We offer 24 hour bat removal, as well as, numerous residential and commercial bat exclusion services, such as bat cleanup and restorations for bat damages. We even provide insurance work! Contact us today for a free estimate.

4 Areas of a Home You Might Find a Bat

Posted on November 5, 2020 by virginia

Although bats have ecological value, we do not one them roosting around our properties. They can cause a range of structural damages inside and outside, and pose a long list of health and safety hazards. For these reasons and more, it is in your best interest to resolve a nuisance about problem before it can get worse. One of the best ways to protect your home from nuisance bad infestations is to implement routine inspections of your property.

Start with some of the more common areas bats like to hide, including these 4 spots below.

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Top Roosting Spots for Bats

Check these areas of your home to see if there are any bats roosting inside!

❶ Attic

Bats love the dark warm climate of an attic space, which is why you typically find colonies roosting here. Attics are one of the first places professional bat abatement specialists check when they are implementing a property inspection for bat activity. After the sun sets, the air currents come in through the vents, cooling the attic down. Bats are sensitive to such air currents, so they awaken them every evening when it is time to go hunt for insects. The cycle continues until an extraction is performed.

❷ Crawl Space

Crawl spaces are another common place to find roosting bats, and for much of the same reasons you find them in attics. Crawl spaces are dark and warm, making for a cozy spot to rest during the day. They are also accessible through gaps and openings high in the house, or through conduits and utility vents.

❸ Chimney

Chimneys are very common spot for bats to roost, particularly because they are so easy to access. They can also crawl down from the fireplace through a wall, crack, or gap. The most common signs for bats and chimneys are seeing accumulations of guano (bat droppings) around the structure.

❹ Roof

Bats are also known to choose rooftops for roosting. They particularly target the corners of a roof, near the vents in the upper siding or the roofing and louvers. Bats will also roost underneath shingles, especially in tile roofing systems. This can cause all sorts of damage, including missing shingles, cracks, water leaks, and more.

What To Do if You Find a Bat

If you discover bats living in or around your property, it is important to immediately separate yourself and your loved ones (including cats and dogs) from the vicinity of their roosting area. Under no circumstance should you ever attempt to touch or trap a wild bat. Your next step is to contact a licensed Virginia bat removal company for emergency bat extraction services. Whether day or night, skilled professionals have the experience and resources necessary to safely remove bats from any location, at any time.

Where to Find Prompt and Professional Bat Removal in Virginia

Call Virginia Bat Pros at 804-729-9097 for safe and humane bat removal and control assistance in Old Dominion. We serve all of Virginia with 24 hour bat removal, as well as, numerous residential and commercial bat exclusion services, such as bat cleanup and restorations for bat damages. We even provide insurance work! Contact us today for a free estimate.