Bats

Actually, a very small percentage of bats carry rabies, much less than one percent of the population.  However, if you suspect that a rabid bat has bitten you, or if a bat is found in the room where a person is sleeping, current health guidelines require that the bat be tested for rabies.  Contact your local health department for instructions.

Often healthy bats fly into houses through open windows or flues.  In late summer, fledgling bats leave the roost for the first time and often take a wrong turn and end up inside a house.  If there has been no exposure*, the best way to evict the bat is to open all windows and doors and give the bat a chance to fly out.  A bat can be safely captured by putting a coffee can or shoebox over the bat and sliding a piece of cardboard underneath.  Unlike birds, bats cannot fly from the ground up so be sure the put the bat on a tree limb or wall, off the ground.  Often bats roost in attics and raise their young there, which provides a benefit to the homeowner in terms of mosquito control int he summer.  The best eviction method is to create a one-way door over the attic’s entry hole so that the bats can get out but not back in.  WARNING:  Bats are too young to fly from May to August; therefore, any eviction should take place in the fall or very early spring to prevent orphaning.

Contrary to popular belief, bats do not fly into people’s hair.  Their swooping flight pattern is due to their long wingspan and their need to gain momentum when flying in an enclosed space like a room. They will gain altitude near the walls and lose altitude near the center of the room, giving bystanders the feeling they are being attacked when actually the bat is just trying to stay airborne!