Bat House Forum

[steveinconcord]

I have a LOT of bats, and I love them. But I don't like them living behind my shutters - it makes a huge mess and damages the shutters. I put a bat house up beside the shutter, and then opened the shutter at night (first checking to be sure all the babies were grown up and gone), but instead of trying out my bat house, they just move behind another shutter. (I have working shutters on a brick house -- they seem to like that environment). I've moved the bat house to face in another direction, but no luck.

[Terry Lobdell]

How high did you mount the box? Be patient, it often takes awhile............And what color is your box?

[Erik]

What might help is mounting the bat house on 2 cm spacers on the brick wall, creating an extra chamber between the wall and the bat house.
Bricks retain heat from the sun over a long time and maybe the bats prefer the bricks over the wooden bat house because of that.
What also may help is gathering some bat droppings from behind the shutters and put it in the bat house.

As soon as you see two or three bats in the bat house (while the rest is still behind a shutter) you can try to leave all shutters open at night, as an extra encouragement for the bats to move. To avoid bats getting into your house, make sure they can't enter your windows that night.

Good luck!