Bat Removal and Exclusion in North Georgia

The Bats of Georgia

Bat removal is one of our most-needed services.

The busiest "bat season" in Georgia begins around March and extends through to the fall, with the busiest time being the hottest part of the summer; but because our winters tend to be mild, we do get the occasional bat control call even in the middle of the winter.

Bats are very misunderstood animals. There's a lot of misinformation about bats out there, and too many people are needlessly afraid of them.

Let's take a quick look at these fascinating creatures and dispel some misconceptions, starting with one of the most common ones:

First of All, Bats are Not Rodents

Please don't call bats "flying rodents." They get highly offended. They're not rodents. And they're not birds, either.

Bats are mammals who belong to the order Chiroptera, which means "winged hand." A bat's front limbs have membranes between their metacarpals and phalanges (basically, their "fingers") that form true, aerodynamic wings.

These wings enable bats to take off from a resting position, ascend, and fly, making bats the only true flying mammals.

Bats are Overwhelmingly Beneficial Animals

There are at least 16 species of bats in Georgia, of which the Big Brown Bat (Eptesicus fuscus) and the Little Brown Bat (Myotis lucifugus) are the species most commonly encountered as nuisance wildlife.

Bats play an important role in the ecosystem by consuming countless insects, including mosquitoes, during their nightly flights. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, a single bat can eat between 600 and 1000 insects every hour. Multiply that by the number of bats flying around every night, and then think about how many mosquito bites the bats are preventing. Kind of makes you appreciate bats, doesn't it?

In fact, bats' insatiable hunger for insects is one reason why bats are protected under both federal law and state laws. Bats feed on insects that are pests of man and which often carry diseases, making bats important allies in fighting vector-borne diseases.

When is Bat Control Needed?

It's only when bats get into attics, structural voids, church steeples, bell towers, and other areas of buildings that bat removal is allowed. When bats get into buildings used by humans or domestic animals, they can cause serious health hazards:

• Bat droppings ("guano") may contain pathogens and serve as a breeding medium for insects and fungi, some of which can cause disease.
• Bats carry parasites like fleas and ticks, many of which are disease vectors.
• Bats have a fairly high incidence of rabies.

In densely populated cities, bat control is especially important from a public health point of view.

Bat Bugs

Bat bugs are another problem commonly associated with bats. Bat bugs are very closely related to bed bugs. Its nearly impossible to distinguish between the two by the naked eye. The usual means of identification is the surroundings in which the insects are found.

Sometimes after a bat-removal job, bat bugs will migrate into the human-occupied area of a home and start feeding on people instead of bats. They can't survive forever this way and they can't reproduce without bat blood, but they can live for a mighty long time -- several months, or maybe even a year -- on human blood. Over time, their populations can become very large, sometimes even necessitating a costly bat bug-control job.

Bat Control and Exclusion

Because they are overwhelmingly beneficial animals, bat control must be performed without harming the bats. The goal is humane bat removal and relocation, not "bat extermination." At Rid-A-Critter, we have always practiced humane, non-toxic, environmentally-friendly bat relocation. We're not "bat exterminators." We're bat conservation professionals. We get the bats out of your house and seal your house to keep them out permanently, but we don't kill them. We remove bats from your property alive so they can find a more suitable place to live.

We also clean up after the bats, seeing as how we evicted them without notice. We can remove hazardous guano (droppings) and other bat by-products, and can provide replacement of contaminated insulation, if needed. (Please note that guano removal and insulation replacement, if needed, are quoted separately from bat removal and exclusion.)

Our comprehensive bat control program consists of bat removal, bat exclusion (sealing up your house to prevent bats from getting in), and sometimes installing "bat houses" to provide alternative places for bats to live. We also acquire any necessary bat control permits to make sure that the job is done in full compliance with state and local requirements.

North Georgia Bat Control Gallery

Here are a few pictures of some of the many bat control and bat-proofing jobs we've worked on throughout North Georgia.

With offices throughout North Georgia, Rid-A-Critter has the tools and personnel to handle any bat removal job, no matter how big or how small. If you have a problem with bats, please call us today for an on-site inspection by an experienced bat control expert. The longer you have bats in your house, the more of a mess they make.

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Rid-A-Critter provides humane bat removal and bat-proofing in all of North Georgia, including Athens, Atlanta, Alpharetta, Canton, Carrollton, Cartersville, Cumming, Dacula, Doraville, Dunwoody, Ellijay, Flowery Branch, Gainesville, Kennesaw, Jasper, Lawrenceville, Loganville, Macon, Milton, Norcross, Rome, Roswell, Suwanee, Villa Rica, Winston, Woodstock, and everywhere in between.

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