Unless you experience it yourself, you may think that the way some people react to having a bat in the house is irrational.  However, many in this situation feel something akin to having a home invasion.  The place they go to for security and respite (their home) now feels unsafe. This can cause deep anxiety.

In this moment, many feel desperate and powerless and therefore turn to the digital oracle.  But beware!  The internet doesn’t filter out the snake oil salesmen ready to capitalize on your desperation to figure out how to get a bat out of your house.  Many sites recommend tactics that do not work or are contrary to bat conservation principles. 

What to Avoid

You search for options on how to get a bat out of your house. You find many results. First, let’s go over the items that you should definitely avoid.  These include repellents, toxicants, frightening devices and traps.   

Why Avoid Bat Repellents and Bat Deterrents

Repellents are chemicals designed to deter animals from a specific location or to prevent certain behavior.  (For ultrasonic bat repellent, please see below in the frightening devices section).  Think of the stuff you put on your fingernails that is supposed to taste bad and therefore teach you to not bite your nails (except in my sister’s case, it tasted like bananas to her and her nails continued to suffer).  Most times, repellents are not toxic.  Repellents can work well on some animals.  So you might think “what do bats not like? Is there something that will repel bats?” Although many repellents have been developed and tested for bat repellency, their efficacy is very limited.  One buyer-beware option that you will find is essential oils to get rid of bats.  It’s natural so it should work, right?  Save your money.

People also think of Naphthalene flakes (or mothballs) as a bat deterrent.  These may help to repel bats if the place is confined and has no ventilation.  Your house is unlikely to have such a place.  In order for this to work, so much product needs to be used that it would actually endanger the people using the building.  So save your money and your health and skip the bat repellent!

Why Avoid Bat Toxicants

Toxicants are commonly known as pesticides.  There are no toxicants registered for the control of bats from national nuisance wildlife removal organizations’ and some States’ point of view.  That being said, there are chemicals toxic to bats that are for sale.

So What Can I Use?

You might be wondering, “How to kill bats?”  Our answer is: Why would you need to?  Exclusion, the process used by Bat Control Specialists of Hudson Valley, is the most effective solution to get a bat out of your house. 

First of all, poisoning bats that are in your house will not prevent other bats from still getting into your house.  Secondly and more importantly, we should be better stewards of our environment.  Bats contribute greatly to the ecological balance from which we benefit.  With this in mind, there is also no need to search for bat extermination.  Granted, there are plenty of pest control companies who are more than willing to poison bats.  To them, business is best when bats need killing.  As bat control specialists, we want to look after your family’s welfare while humanely removing bats and preventing them from coming back.

Scare Tactics and Traps

Frightening devices scare wildlife from a location through non-chemical means.  So, how can you repel bats with scare tactics?  Ultrasonic devices are designed for specialized commercial applications, such as wind farms.  However, these are still in development.  If the highly motivated and well-funded team that includes Bat Conservation International (BCI) has yet to come up with a slam dunk way to repel bats, then what are the chances that the ultrasonic bat device for sale online is going to do the job?

Now we come to bat traps.  From a practical and a conservation point of view, we do not recommend trapping bats.  Again, we want you to think in terms of a lasting solution.  Trapping does not eliminate the way that bats entered your house in the first place.  Through methods approved by nuisance wildlife control organizations and BCI, a bat control specialist can get a bat out of the house and prevent reentry possibilities, all the while allowing the bat to live and contribute beneficially to our environment.  Keep in mind too that it is not legal in New York to trap protected bat species, such as the northern long-eared bat.  

We did not design this article to remove your options nor make your peace of mind more elusive.  Avoid products and services that are ineffectual or impractical, so that you can start to focus on addressing your problem with the help of an experienced professional. 

We are happy to answer any of your questions or schedule an inspection.  We understand what you are going through, and we look forward to helping you avoid the panic trap while humanely getting bats out of your house.