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How do you attract bats to a new bat house?

Experience with bat houses anyone?

  • I bought my 5 year a bat house from the bat conservancy for christmas. She is totally excited about putting it up. But I am starting to worry about guano, attracting bats to a residential area ( a neighborhood of .3 acre lots that backs up to a national forest) and annoying neighbors, getting buzzed by bats when I walk from the car at night. Any advice? Experience with bat houses? My daughter read a book about bats and got really interested in them. I thought this was good, and followed the link to the bat conservancy website and bought the bat house and not its here, ready to go up and... I am getting worried. The bat conservancy web site is, needless to say, encouraging. However, I would like some straight talk and real experience with what it is like to have a bat house on your property. They recommend putting it on a pole or on the house. We have a stucco house which is not optimal. They like stone or brick or wood best (which sounds to me like they prefer a house that haunted, but they dont say that). Constructing a 20 foot pole doesn't seem like a great idea because we have 60 mph winds at times. So I am leaning towards attaching it to our house. They recommend south facing and that is the side of the house with the front door, etc. So what is that like? This thing holds 300 bats. What is it like to have 300 bats coming and going at night? How do you get guano off of stucco? Do you get dead bats in your garden?

  • Answer:

    I live in the country. In the summer there are bats. They are cool, eat skeeters, and don't bother anyone. They don't divebomb you. Put up the bat house.

alcahofa at Ask.Metafilter.Com Visit the source

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If you back up onto a national forest, you're already getting buzzed by bats, you just don't notice because they realize you're not a mosquito and are back on the hunt long before your are aware of their presence.

Kid Charlemagne

Bats are generally a boon to the environment when they get to an area. As sandra_s says, they'll eat mosquitos, as well as all sorts of other pests. quickly, Robin! To the Bat Conservancy!

Jon_Evil

I have a bat house. All summer long you can sit on your porch/deck at night and never get bitten by a mosquito. Bats find them tasty. Bats don't attack your hair.

sandra_s

No bat house, but I lived in a house with bats in the thatch; probably a colony of several thousand or more. The guano I've seen is like mouse droppings. It just needs sweeping, and makes great fertilizer. Never got buzzed or bothered. Every so often would see a dead bat but it was very rare because they mostly die far away from home. The sad thing about bat houses is that not many of them see use. Bats are fussy. You may not get any bats.

Pastor of Muppets

Shineyneenick, we did that too! I just paid a TON to have bats removed from the attic at a vacation home. They were over the garage, not an issue but the poop, like mouse droppings, was bad, we had A LOT of bats apparently. No killing, We just got them all out and put up screens. Want to get a bat house, they do really keep the bugs down. glad to know where to do that now.

pearlybob

Bat house is up. 5 year old is thrilled. No bats yet, but it's only beem 2 days.

alcahofa

Hey I've got a bat in my house right now and thought of you immediately. My 8 year old was not particularly enthused when it flew into her bedroom. I'll let you know tomorrow how much crap it leaves in there overnight since I'm too chicken to trap it myself.

looli

Late to the show, but . . . We put up a bathouse in, I think 2003/4 and it wasn't until last summer that we got bats. (Or at least one.) We've bats throughout the neighborhood so it wasn't a big deal. Not much guano and that that we do see is on our exterior kitchen vent. We simply hose it off periodically and there's no problem. Go for it!

Man with Lantern

My parents have a bat house right next to the back deck, never had any issues with being dive bombed or any problems with the bats. Bats are very cool, I'd definitely put up the bat house.

arnicae

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