Cute little devils, aren't they?

The two inches of mice droppings are actually probably bat guano, not mouse droppings. Very good for the garden, though, full of nitrogen.

You can shop vac them up (the droppings, not the bats!) and it will clean up and leave less smell residue than mouse droppings as there is usually less of a bat urine smell (maybe they pee outdoors on the wing), unlike mice who pee where they poop.

Once you've got them removed, you'll need to do a meticulous job of re-sealing of even tiny cracks or other bats will find your attic and re-colonize. So, before they are removed study the exterior well to see where they are entering; this is best done in the evening and very early morning when they are returning from a night's bug-catching. But you will have to look for alternate holes as well, as they are really fixated on their roosts and return year after year to the same ones.

Depending on where you are, you can also just wait for them to leave for their winter hibernation dens, then seal the walls up to prevent them from coming back next spring. That would save the cost of a bat-removal.

Another thing you might do is provide some bright lighting to the area at night through sunrise. Bats like to sleep in the dark and you might discourage them from coming in to roost. But make sure it's safe lighting that won't cause a fire.

Bats eats zillions of biting bugs every night, so removing a large colony will change the bug dynamics at your place.

But on the other side of the coin, bats can be vectors for rabies, and it is possible for sleeping people (especially young children) to have contact with rabid bats and not realize it until too late. If you should find a dead bat in a sleeping room, contact your doctor and health department immediately.

On the whole, bats are nice, useful, critters. I have tons of them in my barns, and even my attics. (I reluctantly tolerate them there, but would rather they stayed in the barn.) They all fly off somewhere for the winter; I'm not sure how I would feel if they were around 12 months of the year.

After all the bats are gone, you can look and see if any insulation must be replaced. The good thing about bats is that the dropping piles are usually fairly concentrated so you won't have much too much to do.

There are some great books on bats. Looking at pictures of them will scare the bejabbers out of you, though. I lived for many years in areas with large (14" wingspan) fruit-eating bats and medium sized vampire (biting) bats, so the much smaller ones in North America seem pretty tame. Though I hate having one flying around in the house!

Just keep thinking of the thousands of mosquitos and black flies and biting gnats they eat every night.....!

It's surprising you had two inches of droppings, that takes awhile to accumulate. Fifty years ago, when I was a young girl, my family spent a fair amount of time at Angkor Wat in Cambodia. In those days it wasn't a big, international tourist attraction and one could wander pretty much at will through the various temples. My sister and I sometimes clambered up over piles of bat dung a yard or more high to get into some of the buildings. Now that's a LOT of bat poop! And man, did it stink in that heat....!
Molly~

Great post Molly!

My previous home had a bat nursery in the attic...no males (according to the bat experts) just females and young.

As Molly said, shealin, bats are a major cause of biting insect population reduction, so it is best for everyone if the bats are evicted without harming them!

I would strongly suggest that you contact an expert to help you evict your little tenants. What the expert will likely do is find out where the bats are going in and out of your attic and seal all the openings except one. That last opening gets a one way door that will allow the bats out, but not in. They will then find a new place to live.

Where I live, the batman (that's what he called himself) charged about $300 to perform the service. I have heard it can vary in other locations though.

oberon is correct. We are in Central al. We had bats in the space between the attic conversion ceiling and the roof....they can get in anywhere that is the size of the end of your pinkie!! It is against the law to kill bats...so removal is done by the experts. The oneway valve works great...leave in place 2 weeks. The babies are all flying by now so the bats will leave at sundown ( you can stand out there and watch) and then they will try to return at sunrise....they get really angry when they can't get back in. Other posters are correct in that you must seal every spot. The bat guy will do this with a heavy duty black foam. The droppings will smell on hot days forever if yu don't remove them. Our house was built in 1890 and the original attic was FULL of gauno. It was cleaned up and then we had a reinfestation 3 yrs later. No way to get at the guano this time so we just burn incense and wait for cooler temps !! Good luck !

I have called a bat girl. She will be out today. We have only live here three months, it seems the bats have lived here longer.

The only person I knew that got rabies from a bat, was my father.

Dad was treating a dairy cow that was acting very unusual. It was determined that it had rabies that had been transmitted by a bat. So Dad -- as a large animal vet -- had to go thru the series of shots. Only instant that I ever heard of -- but in the state's monthly rabies report -- bats would occasionally be listed. 90% of the time -- it was a skunk.

Animal removal is not cheap but worth the price -- we had a litter of skunks in our basement. Fun, huh??? It cost us $175 per skunk to have them "removed". Fortunately, none of them went "off"!

Cathy

I had a problem with bats last August. The estimates I received for bat proofing the house were in the range of 1200-1500.00, and that included sealing any openings, putting the one way doors on etc. I am in central New York, so that price could be higher elsewhere.

Abbey

----------$5500.00-------------
I am going to have to scrape my husband off the floor.
3000 goes to removal and relocation to bat houses.
the rest is for hazardes waste clean up and dumping.
Is this nuts, or just an oregon thing?
shea

IMPORTANT UPDATE RE RISK OF RABIES FROM BATS:

I posted on this subject earlier and didn't come back until today intending to make a link to a similar post on the Kitchens Forum (Conversation side). I'll link it below, please read through to the end for the info. I want to pass about the risks of rabies from exposure to a bat while sleeping.

The upshot is a young child had a bat in his bedroom for 24 hours, with no known bite, but it is still considered a very serious risk of rabies because bat bites or scratches can be tiny but still dangerous. Unfortunately the bat was let out, and not kept for testing (after euthanization) so the little boy will have to take the rabies exposure shot series. The OP in the thread I've linked to did her research (and contacted her pediatrician) and she found that of the 20 recent deaths from bat rabies (different strain than dog or raccoon rabies) only ONE had any known bite. All the rest were from undocumented exposures.

So if you have the same situation, keep in mind you should keep the bat. But regard ALL bat contact is important enough to consider the rabies risk.

I think bats are great - I just spent the afternoon cleaning only the north end of my attic so as not to disturb the bats in the south end. I'll do the south end one night when they have gone out to feed. I would hate to spread any anti-bat hysteria because I think they are very important in the environment, but in many areas you do have to consider possible exposure to an almost always fatal (only one known unvaccinated survival) disease if you have a bite, scratch or possible sleeping contact with a bat.

Now to the OP with the enormous bat problem. Depending on where you are, your bats may depart for the winter when you (or most likely your DH) could go in there and with respirators on remove the bat guano, and begin to seal up the cracks to prevent them from coming back in next year.

Did your pre-sale home inspection note the presence of the bats? Did the inspector see them and NOT note them?

Good luck!

Molly~

Here is a link that might be useful: INFORMATION ABOUT RABIES EXPOSURE FROM BATS