I think I can help you. #1 Dawn describes all the creatures that apear when you have a water source. I know this because we poured a 12x8 cement ornamental pond on our small city lot in Edmond and suddenly the dragonflies and bats appeared. The purple martins need a larger body of water (I know this from living by the Great Lakes). The water attracts bugs and the dragonflies and bats are attracted to the bugs. Also dragonflies lay eggs on the reeds in my pond. Awesome to see so many bright colored species of these neat insects. Back to the bats. I have some plans I bought from a guy on ebay if you'd like to build your own. I don't know if it will work without a water source but if you at least have a fresh bird bath and a large light outside-I'd say its lunchtime and they'll stick around your bathouse. Just a hunch. They also love to fly over my newly plaed pool and will dive bomb to catch the mosquitos. We can lay on our floats in the pool at night and not get a single mosquito bite. (The bats are happy for our compliance also!) Let me know if I can email the bat house plans to you. We have a new printer so it may be a feat for me. The guy I bought the plans from sells premade houses on ebay if you want to search it. It is quite a chore to make the houses and he does compensate himself pretty good. Good luck to ya!

Thanks - any firsthand info especially helpful... the kids have found a variety of bat-house designs on the web with instructions and have read up on the varying heights, etc. The only thing that hasn't been pinned down as yet is where the existing bats might be roosting at. We know that generally they warn off against mounting the houses in trees because of potential difficulty the bats will have in locating the houses to roost - but that it can be done if branches don't interfere with a direct path to the houses. Currently, the only place we can figure they are roosting, is in a tree or hollow in a tree somewhere, because of the scant structures available, they aren't roosting in those. We figured to try more than one though, in different locations, and see which, if any, get put to use. My husband had the opportunity to get up close and personal with a different species this weekend at Cascade Cavern(s) down in Boerne, TX... two adults and a couple of juveniles. They hang out right along the path taken by tourists down into the chambers and are obviously accustomed to the human presence. He said they shimmered like diamonds (water droplets captured on their fur like the walls of the cavern). At least they have a nice year-round temperature to enjoy unlike those up here. Crikey, I even found a dead Robin this morning - it had frozen to death while perched on a power line and fallen to the road below. We're up to a whopping 17.6F now.... brrrr... something else to take into consideration for bat houses though. One existing pole on the property would readily provide a good height and is an open space, but we're afraid that even with light paint and ventilation holes, they would roast in the summer and freeze in the winter and it would only be suitable for the in-between times of the year temperature-wise. That's another reason they want to try multiple houses in different locations.

I came to GardenWeb seeking "how to" maintain a mud supply for dauber wasps. Am delighted to start thinking about houses. They are the host beautiful animals on earth. Do they make music when building in the tubes? A terrible lesson that I learned years ago. During a mosquito panic in my town I put a few drops of orange oil in the bird bath before a hurried trip out of town. I didn't see a wasp one for several years.

Hi all, I am involved in a major redevelopment project, my part is seeing that the houses we have bought are shutdown and boarded up awaiting demolition so I have access to a lot of scrap Oriented Strand Board "OSB" that I would love to utilize some other way besides filling the local dump. Has any one used OSB to make bat or bird houses of any kind with it? Any success? All the plans I have seen specify outdoor grade plywood. Any glue toxicity problems anyone may have heard of?