Bats living in my home

Why and How do I end up having bats flying in my house?

If you had bats in your home during the winter please visit our page Winter Bats for more information.

If you had bats flying inside your home during spring, summer and autumn this means that you probably have bats living in your building.

Usually the first time you have bats there is a slight chance that they might entered from an open door or window and it can be dismissed as a one-of event. But if that happens repeatedly then we can safely say that you have some bats living in your residence.

Why do I have bats?

Bats as all wildlife look for a place that offers protection and a comfortable temperature where they can live and thrive. Unfortunately your building satisfies both requirements. Bats, depending on the species tend to reside either in your attic or in your walls. There are 2 species of bat that can infest your residence. The Small Brown Bats and the Big brown Bats.

The Small Brown Bats are the ones who hibernating caves and enter buildings during the other seasons. When they enter a home usually are in the order of a few hundred and it is almost impossible of not noticing them. Unfortunately for the Small Brown Bats over the last five years they have almost gone extinct as the White Nose Syndrome has killed millions of them across North America. If you live in a build up area (city or subdivision) it is highly unlikely that you will have Small Brown Bats living in your home.

The Big Brown Bats are the ones who hibernate all year round inside your building and do not leave in the autumn to go to caves. These bats have not been affected as Small Brown Bats have from White Nose Syndrome. The majority of our clients that had a bat problem, they had Big Browns living in their home. Even though it is unfortunate that you have a bat problem you are lucky if you have Big Brown bats living in your residence.

First Big Brown colonies are significantly smaller to Small brown bat colonies. These means that any damage caused to your building will be significantly less compared to what you would have if you were infested by small browns.

Another ‘benefit’ of having big browns instead of small browns is because of the small number of the colony, it is less likely to get many bats in your living space. Also in most cases unless you had a large colony infesting your residence for many years the amount of droppings is insignificant so there is no need for a bat dropping clean up.

Finally the answer to why you have bats, is that bats decided to establish a colony in your home because it provides a safe environment with stable temperatures for them to live. Of course your building should have certain openings for them to be able to get in your home in the first place.

If you have bats do not think that your residence is poorly build, it is not. The tolerance for bats is so low that every building even if it was build way above standards still has a few hundred holes where they can enter.

How do they end up flying in my house?

Once bats find an entry in your residence, they use two locations as their living space. The attic and the walls. Most people believe that if they don’t see a bat in the attic, this means that they do not have an infestation. This is not true. Speaking for Big Brown Bats which is the majority of the infestations, the walls of your home is the preferred living location. The reason why they prefer the walls instead of the attic is temperature.

The walls maintain a stable temperature way better than the attic where especially in the summer months it can get really hot . Bats are really sensitive to temperature variations, and these variations drive them up and down the walls as they are trying to find a suitable temperature.  When this happens sometimes bats get lost inside your home and  they end up in your living space.

The main location where bats end up is the basement and especially unfinished basements. Because all the pipes go up and down through the walls of your house there are gaps between the floors and bats take advantage of them and they end up in the basement. Also all the air ducts of your building give access to basically every room.

I have bats in my home. How can I get a good night sleep?

The best way to ensure/minimize the chances of a bat coming in your bedroom while you sleep is to follow the instructions below:

1. Use a towel or anything else that can be used to completely cover the vents of your bedroom.

2. Take a towel and block the gap between your door and floor (if it exists)

3. If you can see any holes in your holes make sure you cover them up tightly.

The above steps should be enough to get out a good night sleep until you decide to remove the bats from your home.

The only way to remove bats from your building is to bat proof your home and remove the bats at the same time. For more information about bat removal please visit our page Ontario Bat Removal.