Homeowner's guide to bat removal

You wake up to a fluttering blur in your dark bedroom. You are walking down your hallway and you see a dark brown blob hanging from the corner. However it happens, you have a bat in your house.

Now what?

First things first. It’s important to dispel the rumors, local bats aren’t out to suck your blood. They are likely as uneasy as you are about the situation.

Bats will bite humans. The saliva of bats can carry infectious disease. Although very rare, rabies have been found in the saliva of local bats. Rabies is always fatal once symptoms appear.

Here are some tips for getting a bat out of your house:

1. Isolate it to one part of the house by closing doors, etc.If possible keep an eye on it and have someone get the items you need to remove it from your house.

You could also call a professional to remove it at this point.

What tools do you need?

We have heard a lot of stories of how local homeowners followed bats through their house trying to knock it out with a tennis racket. This usually only serves to make the bats even more excited and likely to try to defend itself.

Photo by Michelle Moody on Unsplash

3. Remove it using the shoe box method.

The Centers for Disease Control recommends that a person place a shoe box over a resting bat. It then suggests that you lift the bottom of the box up slightly off the wall.

A thin piece of cardboard can be slid up under the box. When the cardboard touches the bat it will release from the wall into the box.

The cardboard can then be slid over the box opening trapping the bat inside. The box can be taken outside and the bat allowed to fly away.

4. Remove it using a fishing net.

Headley’s Wildlife Control prefers to catch a loose bat using a large fishing net. Our preferred net has small tangle free netting. We also wear bite proof gloves.

We simply place the net over the resting bat. The bat usually attempts to fly when it feels the netting.

The urge to fly sends it right into the waiting net. We then quickly confine the bat to the net using our gloved hand. The bat is then carried outdoors without injury to itself or the homeowner.

It sounds easy, but it has taken years for us to perfect the technique.

If you choose to call a professional be sure to call someone who can legally remove the bat. Ohio and West Virginia law permits only those who are licensed to handle nuisance wildlife to handle bats for pay.

So tell me about your bat adventures....