Learn something new everyday, as I have said before. On my walk today I stopped and chatted with a "Bat Control Specialist" and learned that bats are protected. You cannot kill them. However, they may nest in your attic and the build up of their droppings can make you sick. He was telling me about two men in the area that had pneumonia last summer and it was traced to the droppings they were sweeping from their garage.
He said when they remove bats from a home, they build bat homes for them in the trees so the bats will not try and get back in the house. Of course, the house is grouted tightly. Bats only need 1/4 inch of space to get inside. Now I know why all the vents in my house have wire screen behind them. Bats are the good guys, they eat the mosquitoes and pesky insects so we want them here, we just don't want them in our homes.
The first summer here there were two bats in my patio umbrella, scared me to death. I called Utahna's husband and he came and cleaned them out. I have two umbrellas in my garage now, one of which is broken and never opened in the summer. Is that an invitation for a nest? He told me to look for their droppings, they look just like mice and rat droppings.
He said it is very hard to relocate bats. They tried to move 200 bats from a house on East Shore and painted their tails with iridescent paint to track them. He said the bats went right back to the East Shore. He has been trying to get bats to go live at a farmer's place as there are moths eating his crops. So far, he says, they have not been successful. He said you can't move bats at all when they have babies to care for. Interestingly they only have one baby bat at a time.
Well, when I clean out the garage this spring, I think I will just take the broken umbrella to the dump without opening it!! Of course, what if they got out while I was driving and were swooping around the car, oops...bad idea.
Always something to worry about, enough to drive you batty.
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