BATS!!!!!!!

[TeachyTeacher]

Hope it's the right topic to post on! We have bats in a part of our roof that we can't access and they're driving us nuts!
Last year we heard a couple but it seems that this year there's more and it's awful! We can't access the roof internally, possibly could externally but it's very high up so I think it'll cost a lot for someone to come out and we just can't afford it. Any cheap ideas or experiences that may help us? Also waking kids throughout the night 😭

@TeachyTeacher we can hear noises too , sounds like it's in our walls thou 😫 what noise can you hear ?

We’ve got bats in our stone cottage but they are very quiet and very welcome. They have probably been there for hundreds of years so it is more their home than ours imho.

Also they keep the mozzies down, each bat eats hundreds per night, so are invaluable frankly (I’m allergic to mozzies!).

Just because you have bats doesn't mean you don't have rats/mice/squirrels. Talking from experience. Now rats have gone bat noise is minimal.

I hate bats with a passion. If it were me I would find a dodgy pest controller and get rid of the bastards.

@Newfluff did you have squirrels in your roof ?

Highly illegal and cruel.

Bats are heavily protected and you would face massive fines for doing this.

They are harmless and lovely to watch

We have bats, love seeing them appear at dusk. We’ve never heard them.
are you sure it’s not birds, making the noise?
either way, bats are protected. If you interfere in any way, you’re liable to prosecution.
I think there’s a Bat’s Trust: Council should be able to advise you.

Believe me I know about bats. The bloody pests have cost us a small fortune.

And. That doesn’t give you a right to kill a protected species

We have a lot of bats in our loft over the summer. Day to day they cause no noise or disruption at all - arranging roofing works is another matter entirely! When we had scratching in the loft, we found a squirrel setting up shop in there too (I have a hilarious video of DH being surprised by it in the loft, even the thought of it has made me cry with laughter all over again). Might be worth checking for other creatures up there if its causing that much disruption

@DCINightingale we have something making noises that we need to sort , DH is due to go in the loft later , I think it's a squirrel how did you get rid of it ?

We had a pest control man come, laid some traps which had to be checked daily for 2 weeks before he took them away. The squirrels legged it as soon as they saw him, so he and DH blocked up visible holes along the roof line and they did not return, thank goodness!

It's so hard to describe but the closest is like a shuffling noise, we've had rats /mice in previous homes and they're definitely a different noise. The bats don't move much, more just a shuffle but it's from different parts of the roof, sometimes it sound like they've fallen? 🤔

Sorry I meant to tag you in that reply @summergone

We had a squirrel in our last house (god I've had a lot of animals 🤣) and it was so hard to get rid of, you need to block block block any possible entry points from outside! Ours made a home under the bath!

It's a criminal offence to disturb bats. Contact the local bat group for advice.

@DCINightingale so were yours in the loft ? This noise sounds like it's coming from the wall cavity 😩

@TeachyTeacher this is like a shuffling scratchy noise , but sounds like it's from behind the wall

Aww we have bats too! Ours are very quiet, we never hear them. I love going out at dusk and watching them fly off.
ours are gone now though. They will be back in spring.

You need a professional to move them. They are protected.
We wanted to paint our house and didnt get a permit, because it could disturb the bats 🙈
Asked to do it in winter and they said the bats would get confused if its a different color. So we were only allowed to keep it the same color.

I thought bats were pretty quiet, isn't the noise more likely to be mice/rats? If bats can get in then they certainly can and will.

So much incorrect information on this thread, but thankfully plenty of people on the side of bats!

It's not necessarily true that bats hibernate elsewhere - plenty of species will overwinter in cavity walls etc. They need constant (low) temperatures and humidity to hibernate, which is why they usually prefer caves, cellars etc, but many of our native species will overwinter in houses. They're just hard to detect in winter with the usual survey techniques, and so many hibernation roosts go unnoticed. They don't always hibernate all winter either - if temperatures are warm enough for insects to fly, bats might go out for a feed.

Don't block any entrance or exit points to roosts, or put down poison - this is a criminal offence. Bats are a European Protected Species for very good reason - their numbers are declining through habitat loss and persecution.

My initial advice would be to engage a bat ecologist to come and have a look. Try your local bat group too - some have licensed volunteers who will come out and check for roosts, although not if you are intending to do roof works.

Oh and finally they don't have rabies. A small number of bats carry Lyssavirus, which is related to rabies. If you must handle a bat, wear gloves to protect yourself and the bat.

Deffo had nice/rats (and a squirrel 🤣) and it's a different sound, almost 99% it's bats

I agree with this - bats aren't pests!

Also, they will eat insects so you'll have fewer flies and other buzzing things to deal with. It's a positive!

I used to work in an office where we had bats in the roof. They were very quiet, we only realised they were there when we started getting droppings coming through the gaps between the polystyrene ceiling tiles.

We weren't allowed to do anything about them as they were protected. We had to vacate that particular room which was a real pain as we were very tight on space anyway

Fucking hell, you really are a piece of work, aren't you?

No wonder the planet is being destroyed with attitudes like this.