$1,596.75
 

that's the estimate I just received to remove the bats (plural) from our attic.

I will now cry.

Get a cat. We had something in my parents attic, but didn't know it. One night our cat was sitting under the attic door and wouldn't leave. She was making all kinds of weird noises. This went on for a couple nights...then it stopped. My dad had someone come look in the attic and he found an empty nest and saw where whatever it was had gotten in. The guy said the cat saved him over $1000 by scaring away whatever was up there.

I'm in the wrong business.

The mice in your house were seen rejoicing when they saw the bat guy.

oliegirl has a point. get one that has front claws.

Fuck that. Fishing nets, baseball bats, helmets, and some wood to plug up whatever holes you make in getting rid of them.

Sounds like your prices are similar to those around here. (I was once quoted $500 per squirrell)

Suggestion #1 -- Do NOT use a shotgun to remove the bats. Roof repair isn't cheap either.

Suggestion #2 -- Shop around, shop around, shop around. That was the difference between getting the job done & not getting it done.

(The squirrels were eventually removed for $150 total. Bats, which we usually didn't discover until they made their way into the living areas, we usually removed ourselves. But if you've ended up with a full nest in the attic, you might find a roofer willing to tackle the project -- they often end up making the discovery themselves & have plenty of practice)

Suggestion #2 --

I'll come over with my bibi gun and take care of that bat problem for ya for the bargain price of $500.

You might say that your batting 1000, DD.

*runs*

Be a man, go up there "Great Outdoors" style with a lamp shade on your head wielding a tennis racket.

first thing yous should do is install a webcam in the attic so we can follow the escapades that ensue.

next thing you should do is install a webcam......

you know the rest.

I'm thinking there must be a chemical or biological weapon you can use to solve this problem.

get a super soaker. they hate that.

Do you have any bombs?

Is there some sort of automatic bat-removal cost calculation software out there that gives amounts to the penny? 1596.75 seems like a really odd estimate to give for something like this.

i second this motion! set up the web cam, and then get a helmet w/ face mask of some kind, maybe get some of Barry Bonds' body armor and his bat and have away at it...... :D

Maybe you can sell one of your FOFC friends to pay for this? Purportedly, most of us are worth more than that.

http://dynamic2.gamespy.com/~fof/for...ad.php?t=28867

Just a thought.

Them bats is smart....they use radar

Better than a baseball bat, use an old tennis racket...larger surface area and the holes in it messes up their radar.

I actually managed to kill a bat flying around our house with a teddy bear when I was a child. I think it may have died of embarrassment at being taken down in that way though.

the inspectors don't know how many bats we have...they know it's "lots" - 75 was the rough number he gave. he also found evidence of mice and at least 1 flying squirrel. I was hesitant to share that number with my wife (we thought 3 or maybe 4).

note that we have 3 cats, all of which are too lazy (or inept) to chase a bat. the other day I had one in my family room - the big male cat ran away.

I don't really mind the bats being in my attic, but the bat scat (as they called it) is starting to literally pile up. and we are averaging about 2 per summer getting lost inside the house...and they are a PAIN to find when that happens. this last one that got in must have tussled with one of the lazy cats, because when we put our son to bed later that night, my wife found little specs of dried blood all over his wall. That was the final straw.

anyway, I am checking around. these guys seem very eco-friendly, which is a big plus for me. but I'd like to get at least one more estimate - that's a lot of money for us to be spending right now...

What exactly is the evidence of a flying squirrel? Did he leave his business card behind?

75 bats? Damn Dracula, I was thinking 3 or 4.

hair, actually - around an entrance hole. these guys spent almost 3 hours going over every inch of the house, outside and in. really a thorough job. found several entrypoints for the bats, and one for the squirrel.

I'm actually much more alarmed about the squirrel than the bat - I have heard horror stories about them.

There was a moose nearby, so flying squirrel was obvious.

I know they call home ice in hockey game "our barn"....But jeez DD you guys are taking it a bit far ..don't you think?

Ever seen Christmas Vacation? That squirrel couldn't even fly...

why didn't they patch the holes for you. Then you can just go get about 20 cans of roach or fleaa killer (the fogger) and smoke them dead in a day.

Gold.

interestingly, I'll always remember when the first bat came into our house - it was during the Blues/Avs series of the Avs Cup run of 2001. It was one of 2 games the entire playoffs I had to work for, and my wife called franticly during the game because there was a bat in the house. I had to go home and get the bugger out.

by far, the biggest expense on the quote is the "patching the holes" part - about $1000. the seal up all the potential entryways, because otherwise the bats (or something else) will just find a new way in.

the extraction part is cheap - just under $200. ditto for trapping the squirrel.

I woulda told you "'bout a hundred bucks."

Good thing I'm not a pest man.

If she freaked out over one, how did the other 74 plus a flying squirrel get in?

by now, we've had 6 or 7 in the house over the last 4 years. she's still not excited about it, especially the one from a couple months ago (see http://dynamic2.gamespy.com/~fof/for...ad.php?t=27330), but she's a little over the initial fear. she almost gathered the courage to catch the one in the bathroom, but eventually did have to call me.

shit - for $100, I'll pay your airfare up here.

Fuck that, just get a few pieces of wood and walk around the attic for a while with the lights off. If you see any light coming through from outside, put a board over it. If bats attack, bring some garlic.

Tip from a veteran bat-catcher -- fishing nets. Works like a charm (once you figure out where the bastard has decided to hide).

(No, not the big ass nets you drag behind a trawler, the handheld kind like you use to help get the sucker into the boat.)

75 . . . that's not an attic above your house, that's a damn bat motel.

Damn, humor comes in the strangest threads. I've laughed more at this one than anything else today. :D

dola

I mean shit like this...that's just classic. Like DD is going to waltz up into his attic with a bat-grabbing trawler net. I'm laughing out loud as I type it...

Anyone know the going rate on guano? You could have a goldmine above your head.

Found this:

SC3001 High Nitrogen Bat Guano, 1 lb. (1.3#) $4.90
SC3002 High Nitrogen Bat Guano, 2.75 lb. (3#) $10.90
SC3003 High Nitrogen Bat Guano, 10 lb. (11#) $35.90
SC3004 High Nitrogen Bat Guano, 25 lb. (27#) $69.90

Wow... for $1,596.75 you could instead have a party with:

- Two hookers
- An eightball
- A case of scotch
- 40 mg of Cialis
- Three liters of Astroglide

Kinda puts that bat problem into perspective, doesn't it?

You need to move out of the boons...

I'm like half a mile from main street of a small town (but still 20,000+ people here). it's funny you say that though - it's been barely a week since the last bat was in the house and I made the appointment for the inspection. since then, one night I came home to find a possum in the driveway, and another night there was a skunk. I wont even count the nest of carpenter ants in the wall of a few years ago...and it's still like Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom here.

just had a semi-amusing call with our insurance company. wanted to find out if there was any chance the bat removal was covered. of course, we knew it wouldn't be, but it never hurts to ask.

anyways, it's not covered because the infestation is a gradual thing. this brief exchange ensued:

her: since the bats moved in over a gradual time frame, it's not covered.
me: so, if a herd of lemmings suddenly attacks the house and knocks down the door, THAT is covered?"
her: huh?
me: nevermind

turns out, the lemmings wouldn't be covered either, because it doesn't cover rodents or vermin. but if a herd of raccoons comes attacking...

aren't raccoons rodents?

Noooooooooooooooooooo..................alright......pics pls kthnx.

Dude, just get your ghost to give them the once-over.

Just invite like 20 FOFC'ers over with fishing nets, and you provide the beer when all is said and done.

And once again - webcam first.

Brilliant.

I'm up for that. DD is paying for the plane fare out there, right?

Fishing nets? Im thinking Tennis Rackets.

don't mess around...flamethrowers for everyone.

Holy crap DD, at first I was gonna' say why on earth get rid of them, but your follow up description of events and numbers of pests poopooed that plan. Good luck, that is a pretty freaky problem.

Christine and I were on the couch eating a nice dinner when another bat flew into the family room. it's the 3rd one in about 6 weeks.

worst part: I opened the screen door for him to leave, but I lost track of him. I'm not sure at all if he left...or is just napping, waiting for me or my son to find him tomorrow.

so, I guess we're going to spend the money for sure now.

While I must admit that reading this thread has been, to say the least, HILARIOUS, I have an idea for you.

My granmother had this problem with animals in both teh basement and the attics, she bought those electronic pest agitators...the ones that put out high end sound that pisses off the animals. The bats and squirrels acted annoyed, for about 30 second, then fled as fast as possible through every opening available.


go to your local outdoors shop and ask for these, buy 1-4 dependong on your taste in how fast you want to see these buggers fly off.

install webcam in attic

turn on pest annoyance devices

enjoy the show, then once they appear to be gone, take some scrap lumber and close off the access points.

this should cost you maybe 200 bucks, if everything you use is seriously expensive.

My gram said it was the funiest thing she ever saw as she watched a minimum of 20 chipmunks fight to be the first one out of the basement walls......


*mental image*

4 inch hole at ground level


15-20 chipmuck heads squashed tightly together all girating to get past the others...

*/ Mental Image*

so, we're going to go ahead and have the work done. it's going to be about a month before they can do it, so we may be putting up with a few stragglers in the house until then. the $1600 hurts though. and, literally the day after the inspection, the valve in our upstairs bath went out, and we had to get the plumber in - another hundred bucks or so we didn't really want to be spending.

had an interesting talk with the owner of the bat service today - he definitely is a
Grizzly Adams nature boy type (the kind who could live in the wilderness eating berries and mouse poop). At one point, he mentioned the bat he kept in his upstairs bathroom for a winter. (???)

Anyway, I wanted to ask how to flush out a bat hiding in the house, like the guy who may or may not be hiding in my family room now. He suggested smelly things - bats don't like mothballs, candles, incense, stuff like that. So, we've been burning incense upstairs pretty much constantly tonight, in hopes of at least keeping them at bay for a bit. All the incense though makes me think I need to buy some pot or something.

Having BTDT too many f'n times to count, and having what my wife refers to as "regular bat removal procedures", here's how it's done.

1) Seal off the area where you think the bat is from any parts of the house you definitely don't want him/her to be. No sense making things even worse.
2) He ain't gonna be doing a whole lot of moving around at night in most cases. Odds are, he's found a spot to perch himself upside down til morning.
3) Depending upon how squeamish you are (when it comes to animals that are occasionally rabid, for me that'd be "very"), a broom is your friend.
4) Think like a bat for a minute -- I don't wanna be fucked with, I just wanna get some sleep. Where can I go? In my house, about 90% of the time that means the little bastard has stuck himself to the highest & darkest place he can find -- tucked in the folds of the curtains or the valance(sp?) above the curtains.
5) This is where the broom comes in -- I've got 14 foot ceilings, so it ain't exactly like I can just reach up & grab the m.f. Work your way around the room, using the broom to spread the curtains. You'd be amazed how well a small fold can hide a small bat (quite small when they're curled up). Once you find him, knock hell outta the curtain.
6) A good swat with the broom usually sends them careening to the floor & they're stunned for a few seconds. That's where the broom comes in handier.
7) Make like Brett Hull & one-timer him toward the fuckin door (I recommend either opening the door beforehand OR having SWMBO be standing by to open the door at the appropriate moment).
8) Repeat Step 7 as needed until you put the biscuit in the basket ... or in this case, the bat outside instead of inside.

What does SWMBO mean?

Universal internet shorthand for "She Who Must Be Obeyed"
Typically a wife, occasionally an unmarried significant other.

Ok, thanks, I was enjoying your description of how to get rid of the bat, but then got thrown for a loop when I reached that acronym.

this room is tough. there are ANY number of places for a bat to hide. one entire wall is built in book-cases, 20-wide, 10' tall. add in a computer desk, tv, heater, and approximately 6,000 toys.

I really gave the room a good going over...even crawled underneath my computer desk and looked behind the computer (a nice, warm place), but no dice. but, really, he could be anywhere. the last time, he was on the floor in a corner, and I had totally missed him when I looked the first time.

Gold.

the very first bat we had in the house was a BITCH to get out. for a while he was hanging on the back of our stereo...and wouldn't let go. then, he finally did, and crawled under an entertainment center that was too heavy to lose. EVENTUALLY the idiot landed on the curtain string hanging from an open window. here he is, inches from freedom, and he's just hanging on the string. I just swung the tennis racket and *thwacked* him out the open window. not very smart, these little rodents.

Damn straight! :D :D :D

Sorry to hear this, DD, but you gotta admit, this would be funny if you weren't the person who's house it was. Hope you get it straighted out.

SI

When the sun rises, you should be the one on top of the peak.

oh, I do chuckle about it. the money is kind of tough, especially right now, but life could be much worse

Newby

I'd add some sitar music. I've heard they hate that, too.

And Jon, that was epic stuff. LOL on the Brett Hull comment.

The sad part is that it's all true -- my wife & one of her friends (who has similar bat experiences) have begun lobbying for bat removal to be the next Olympic sport.

The even sadder part (to me at least) is that my first bat removal attempt is a far funnier story than the now tried-and-true procedure that I described here.
It was just fuckin' pathetic on my part, and that's about all that needs to be said I think.

You can add that this is typically referencing Mrs SkyDog

Well, it is defininitely a generic terminology, but I was probably the first to use it regularly at FOFC.

Oddly enough, the most common internet slang used by women to describe husbands is "DH" aka Dear Husband.

Seems kinda unfair ... until you realize that we often put more affection in "SWMBO" than they intend with "DH" (which can be used very sarcastically).

No kidding. My wife's adoption agency has a company-run message board (which is, by the way, one of the dumbest ideas ever for an adoption agency), and the potential adoptive moms on their often use it sarcastically.

I thought this would be the appropriate thread to post an article that I thought was cool because my brother is quoted in it and its about bats.

http://www.recordnet.com/daily/news/...81904-gn-4.php

Evicted bats return to Thornton bridge site

By David Siders
Record Staff Writer
Published Thursday, August 19, 2004

THORNTON -- Bats that had been evicted from under an old farm-truck bridge on the San Joaquin/Sacramento County line are back.

That's good news for the bats and for nearby farmers, too.

The dilapidated Franklin Boulevard/Thornton Road bridge was closed after floods in 1997 ruined wood pilings under it and caused it to sag. Bats roosting under it were kicked out ahead of a bridge reconstruction that is to be finished in November.

Lately, however, bridge watchers have noticed construction crews have company underfoot.

Seven thousand bats have been counted so far under the replacement bridge, which was designed with bat-friendly, redwood-lined crevices installed in the concrete, said Craig Moyle, a spokesman for the Sacramento County Department of Environmental Review and Assessment.

"If you're quiet, you'll hear them chirping," he said.

The bats that are back are just a fraction of the once 40,000-strong. Persuading them to leave the redwood bridge in the first place required caulking shut the crevices in which the bats slept, or covering them with mesh, Moyle said.

"Every night they would go out there for weeks on end plugging up the old crevices," he said.

The bats moved into trees and bat houses erected nearby, he said.

The replacement bridge, like its predecessor, spans the Mokelumne River, connecting two farm-to-market roads. The bats benefit the local farm economy by eating crop-assaulting insects, said Tim Hawkins, an environmental analyst with the Sacramento County Department of Environmental Review and Assessment.

Moyle said insects swarm the area near the bridge.

"The bats are there for a reason," he said.

The $13.5 million replacement bridge has room for 600,000 bats, but it is unclear how many will return to roost there. It is difficult to count how many might remain in the surrounding trees, Hawkins said.

"We're crossing our fingers and waiting until next year to see," he said. "There's not much we can do to lure them."

The bridge has apparently been lure enough. Moyle said the bats sleep there because it is warm, and fly out from under the bridge in waves to feast on insects when the sun sets.

Moyle said the bats are almost undetectable during the day, except for droppings on the ground that look like "burnt Rice Krispies."

Hawkins said he was surprised any bats had returned yet at all. He said he figured the construction overhead would scare them away.

The federal government is paying about 80 percent of the reconstruction of the bridge; San Joaquin and Sacramento counties are contributing the rest.


**my brother is the Environmental Analyst

Hey Brad Hawkins!

Dude, you should have known what to expect when you bought the place.

Fishing rods don't have quite the surface area but they have an equally confusing radar profile.

When I was a kid....oh never mind, the PETA people will have a fit.

I don't think we have any PETA people here.

I'd recommend a lacrosse stick.

Just get some nets and get them out during the day when they're sleeping. Make sure you also seal up any holes where they can get in. No sense paying that much when you can do it yourself. Even remove them over a period of time if you are worried about a swarm of bats attacking you.

Ok...cool. When I was a kid we would take white limestone rocks and throw them in the air and the bats would follow them almost to the ground. Almost was when you heard the whistle of a rod blank humming through the air. You had to swing it like you were trying to cast. We missed more than we we hit but it was hours of fun. We usually got 1 or 2 everytime we did it. It's amazing what a piece of limber graphite can do to a winged rat.

Edit: For city folk a "rod blank" is a fishing rod that hasn't had any hardware epoxied to it (like eyes or a handle).

Sweet.

Reminds me of the time I was at Ocean City, MD as a kid, and I saw a guy fishing off one of the piers. He cast out a line, and while it was in mid-air, a seagull swooped down and snatched the bait.

There's nothing funnier than watching a guy try to reel in a flying seagull.

So...how much does it cost to remove 3,500 pounds of bat shit from an attic?

3,500 Lbs. of Bat Guano Found in Attic

May 3 09:45 AM US/Eastern

BALLSTON SPA, N.Y. (AP) - An upstate New York couple didn't think a few bats in the attic were much of a problem when they were buying a house last summer. Months later, they found out how wrong they were when they discovered more than a ton and a half of bat droppings up there. Nick LaBoda and Jenna Caputo say a home inspector informed them about the bats. They called an exterminator, who told them to wait a while before removing the bats because the babies were too young to fly. Then they forgot about the bats until they smelled a foul odor in January. When they checked the attic, they found dead bats and piles of guano. An exterminator says hundreds of bats had been living in the attic, leaving behind 3,500 pounds of droppings. It cost $25,000 to clean up the mess, and the couple's insurance company wouldn't cover it. They're fighting it out in court.

3500 pounds sounds like a LOT more than hundreds of bats. bat droppings are a lot like mouse droppings.

We should do a class action against insurance companies who refuse to cover for the cost of shit removal.

Wow this is an old thread.

I have good recall for bat shit-related stories.

3500 pounds of bat doo and it took them THAT long to notice the smell?

"They called an exterminator, who told them to wait a while before removing the bats because the babies were too young to fly."


What's the logic here? Save the baby bats, and cause yourself $25K of problems in the process? Otherwise, I would think removing the bats before they could fly would be much easier. And the kicker is that they ended up dead, anyway.

That's the first thing I thought. How would you not notice that when first looking at the place. I don't care how much deodorizer they use.

Think of it as free insulation.

Isn't bat guano a good source for some gunpowder ingredients?

*boom*

IIRC, in many places it's illegal to remove bats while the babies are too young. I know we had some very specific windows where we were able to remove the bats, otherwise we'd have to wait.

Ah, another "spotted owls rape lumberjacks" moment. I see.

poor bats. they just want a nice home

Seems like there ought to be action against the home inspector and/or the seller of the house, if that much guano managed to go unnoticed.

Pretty safe bet there aren't a whole lot of threads on the board about guano...

SI

Napalm seemed to work pretty well in 'Nam.

Moth balls might do the trick. It usually makes things move out in a hurry. If the entry ways are not actual roof leaks, try some of that foam sealant that comes in a can and expands.