Bat House Forum

[alligatorob]

 

 I am in North Florida and we have a bat problem.  I live in a new house, it was one of six houses all built at the same time, all of us moved in over the past couple of months.  Shortly after moving in we found a large bat colony living in the wall, we saw them fly out one night and there had to be hundreds of them.  We did some online research and decided to buy a bat house and put some home made bat excluders on the opening the bats were using to get into our house.  The excluders worked and after a few days all the bats seemed to be gone so we permanently blocked their entrance.  

 

The problem is that the bats just seem to have moved to our neighbor’s houses and other places on our house.  They are scattered and no one place has more than a few.  Now the neighborhood is sprouting bat excluders and another neighbor has ordered a bat house.  But so far the bats have shown no interest in the houses and every time someone runs them out of a spot they just seem to find another.  We are at a very low elevation near the coast so all of the houses are built on pilings ~12 feet off the ground.  I don’t know if that makes our houses more attractive to bats but it sure makes putting the excluders up and blocking entrances hard. 

 

We live in a semi-rural area with undeveloped land all around and lots of wetlands to breed bat food, we appreciate the service the bats do in eating those bugs but just wish they would move into their houses and out of ours.

 

Any advice would be welcome.

[IowaNate]

  I was wondering how high the bat houses are mounted, and on what substrate (pole, tree, or building). If bats keeping finding new ways to enter the already occupied manmade structure (ie...your home), they are much less likely to inhabit the bat house.

  The general rule of thumb for occupied bat houses are as follows... placed at least 12 feet up on poles or the side of a building, facing South or Southeast to receive at least 6 hours of sunlight, and painted a medium shade of brown in your area. If the houses you put up for the bats are drafty, have crevices wider than 3/4", or don't have the partitions scratched or roughed up in some way for the bats to have good footholds, then the houses might never be occupied. What style or brand of bat houses did you put up?

  A few large, well built bat houses might entice the bats to move from the neighborhood homes if the basic criteria are met. But filling the holes where the bats are getting into your homes is probably going to be necessary as well. Make sure the "bat excluders" have been installed for a few days before permanently filling the holes. And don't use the bat excluders during the months of May through July, as most bats are raising young at these times, you don't want young flightless bats dying in your walls.

  With a little bit more information on your problem, many of us on this site will be able to assist you.

             Welcome to the best bat house forum on the Internet!

                                                                                        Nate

 

[BatMan]

Where exactly do you live in North Florida ? I'm in Ponte Vedra, are you anywhere close to me ?

[alligatorob]

I mounted the bat house about 12 feet off the ground facing southeast on a pine tree.  The tree is probably 100 feet tall and the first limbs start at about 50 feet so the mount looks more like it’s on a pole than a tree.   This is the same elevation as the place they were getting into my house.  The place they were entering my house faced east and was white.  It is hit by direct sunlight intermittently, but probably for at least 6 hours a day.  Here is a link to the bat house I put up: http://item.express.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ExpressItem&item=200178496047&ssPageName=ADME:B:EEOCA:US:13001  I’ll check and see what the neighbor’s bat house looks like.

I am in Panacea, that’s south of Tallahassee and about 200 miles west of Ponte Vedra.  You can find my location on Google Earth at put these coordinates in:  30 02 12.86 -84 23 14.2 and it will go right to where the house is, but the photo was taken before the house was built so all you see is vacant land.

Thanks for the advice.

Rob

[Terry Lobdell]

Rob, The bats might move into a bat house mounted on a building quicker than one mounted on a tree. I agree with everything Nate told you.

If you are patient you will be able to exclude them and get them to move into the bat houses.

Also, the more bat houses you mount, the more alternatives you give the bats to not roost in people's homes.

[IowaNate]

 Rob, how long has the bat house been put up? I checked the bat house online and it seems to be well built. Sometimes it takes bats a few months to find a bat house, or for the bat house to lose some of it's caulk or paint smell which might be unattractive to bats. Placing the bat house close to the point of bat entrance on your home also seems to improve odds of it being occupied. Terry also made a good point in mounting more than one bat house to give the bats more roosting options.

  It may take some time in excluding most of the bats from the existing homes, but with persistence and mounting well built bat houses nearby, you have a very good chance of providing safe roosting for your bats.

[alligatorob]

Thanks for the advice it sounds like we just need to keep after it.  I don't want to put the bat house on my house and other than the neighbor's houses there are no other nearby buildings.  This is a very large colony of bats, in the hundreds and when they were in my house I could smell them, so I need to get them far enough away to keep the odor down.  I am trying to attach a photo of my house, it  has a red circle around what was the primary entrance, that is the one we put the excluder on and now have blocked off.  You can see these houses sit pretty high, making it hard to find the entrances, put up excluders, or plug the holes.  To do that you need a pretty long ladder.  But we are working on it.

thanks,

Rob[img]http://www.batnic.org/forum/[img]http://img241.imageshack.us/img241/4599/frontbatskr1.th.jpg[/img][/img]

[alligatorob]

Oh the other red circle shows the tree where I put the bat house.  This photo was taken before the bat house or the bat problem.

[Terry Lobdell]

Rob, maybe what you could do is set a temporary pole a few feet from where the bats are entering your house and mount the bat house on it. Once the bats start roosting in it, set a 2nd pole with a bat house further away. Once the bats find the 2nd house you could take down the first one. This might be a gradual process but I think it would work.

[Joe Spencer]

Thanks for the photo Rob. Rob, I like Terry's suggestion.  Mount back to back nursery houses on a post or if your capable, build a rocket bat house with multiple chambers and place that on a post near the home.  Bat houses mounted on trees are far less likely to be occupied.

[IowaNate]

 I definitely agree with a pole mounted house or two. I reposted your image and put a red dot where I believe would be a great spot off the Southeast corner of your home. The tree in the background where you have the house hung looks like it could be shaded in the early morning hours when the bats need the solar heat gain the most, also their flight to the house might be impeded by the surrounding trees. I have a bat house that is occupied by over 250 bats in the summer, and the smell isn't noticeable unless I get within 5 feet of the house's bottom.

  Also on the note of ladders, I recently bought a Gorilla ladder (model AL-22-02) from Home Depot that is both an extension ladder and step ladder which extends up to 19 feet, but it folds down to about 5.5 feet and weighs about 40 pounds. It cost me about $130 but is perfect for any home needs and bat house hanging. In my opinion it is the only ladder most homeowners will ever need for any project (indoors and outdoors).

[alligatorob]

Thanks for the advice; and I will look for a Gorilla ladder, I can see I will have a lot of ladder work to do.

Nate, I made a mistake in my earlier post and probably mislead you on direction; the original entrance was on the west not east side and so the red dot you show is actually on the northwest side of the house.  I am not sure when this picture was taken, I got it from the developer who built the houses it was probably taken last summer, and clearly in the morning.  Now with the sun further south direct sunlight never hits the side of the house that is lit in the picture.  The bat house we put up faces south east, gets pretty good morning sun light and there are no branches within at least 30 feet of it.  It is north east of the house. I will take your advice and try to get another bat house on a pole to the southeast of the house.  Another neighbor is putting up another bat house tomorrow; hopefully the bats will get the idea.

The bats have moved back into my house and are entering in at least two spots one on the east side and one on the south side of the house.  My neighbors also still have some of the bats and there are entrances on the east, south and west sides of houses, I haven’t seen any on the north side.  Right now there are bats in at least three of the houses with multiple points of entry.  We seem to be playing musical chairs every time one of us puts up excluders, the bats move, then more excluders go up and they move again.  Problem is so far the movement is just house to house.

[IowaNate]

 I checked your lat/long and understand now that the bay is to the East of your home (very close might I add). But the placement of my red dot might still be advantageous as opposed to the tree in the background. A 16 foot 4X4 costs roughly $20 and 80 pounds of concrete is less than $8. For about $28 you can get two bat houses at least 12 feet in the air. I know that not everyone can do this, but it is much easier than you might think. Heck, you can even plant a small flower garden beneath the post and have natural fertilizer for the plants. It would be both aesthetic and functional!

[Joe Spencer]

[user=456]IowaNate[/user] wrote:

 Heck, you can even plant a small flower garden beneath the post and have natural fertilizer for the plants. It would be both aesthetic and functional!

Yes indeed Nate!  Below is a success story on the subject which I posted elsewhere in the forum under foam rocket bat house.  Although I don't have an updated photo showing the flower garden below it, the owners of the home updated this below:

"Hi Joe,

I have my flower gardens under the bat houses. All the guano falls into them and they grow like crazy.

Karen :calmhappy: