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Help Identifying Bats


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Originally posted by Neal Lewis

I'm pretty sure what I'm seeing is an entry point for bats. The droppings on the house are a dark color. There were no droppings in the attic at all. Can anyone give some pointers on inspection for bats? I only see this type of thing every few years.

Every time I find bats, there's a conical pile of guano under them. They might not be getting into the attic at all. They might be happy just hiding behind the trim. That's what they do on my house. It sure looks like a bat hideout.

I'd encourage them.

- Jim Katen, Oregon

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I find bats around here a few times a year. If they are roosting in the outer gable louvers, I generally view them as beneficial. After all, we have a lot of mosquitoes around here in some areas. So long as the colony isn't huge, and the guano isn't deposited on top of anything important, I say live and let live. (I do inform my clients, however. Most are not so willing to peacefully co-exist.) When bats get inside the attic, however, your average homeowner isn't so willing to allow their presence...nor am I.

My first experience with bats was kinda funny. As an inspector, I was pretty green. I was inspecting a 2 story home in a neighborhood of homes about 30-40 years old. When I got into the attic, I saw about a dozen bats hanging by the gable vent screening, but they were outside the attic itself. I remembered seeing a guy working on the gable of a home across the street on a very tall ladder. I went over and asked if he was dealing with bats. It turns out that the homeowner had noticed an odor in the home in the area of her teenaged son's bedroom. She had previously attributed it to dirty socks and such since he played football.

Well, don'tcha know...he left for college and the smell didn't.

Upon further investigation, there were dozens of bats literally hanging from the rafters and depositing their... um, byproducts of digestion on the attic insulation. After enough time, the smell -- and some stains -- soaked through the drywall and became obvious inside the home.

I found the little guy in the photo hanging near the floor in a 1920's home I inspected. He was inside a room which had been a patio decades ago, but was now a sitting room. I never figured out how he got in.

This is for Jim K--

"Fluffy" for a bat??? I prefer "Spike".

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Originally posted by StevenT

Although the new aluminum ones seem to hit farther, I prefer the old fashioned type.

Ah, how quickly things change. The aluminum bats are pretty much obsolete. These days, the big hitters use composite bats. It's the same stuff they use to build Stealth aircraft.

Daddy of a power-hittin' girl,

WJ

PS: I've got a yellow Louisville Slugger all-wood softball bat. It's on its way to becoming an oddity and an heirloom.id="blue">

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