...had a family in our fireplace chimney (discovered them through babies "chirping")...measured chimney flue, made hardware cloth cover, installed it at midnight, no more bats... ...screen vent on inside at night...
They also eat their weight in mosquitos and other flying insects every night. That West Nile virus is carried by the mosquitos and I'm sure there is a higher probability one would get bit by a mosquito than a bat.
My wife and I and our 3 children lived on an old farm property complete with giant barn when the kids where little and I had hair. One evening we noticed bats flying out of the peak ,where some trim was pulled away. I watched them for quite some time, come out , circle the barn once and head out to the swamp at the rear of the property. The next evening my three kids , all in pjs , sat out on a blanket with me and we counted them as tbey came out. 204 bats was the final total. We never really had a mosquito problem, just the occasional one, now we knew why......Jim
We have had 2 bats fly around our back year since we bought the house in 93. I don't know how long they live but there always seem to only be 2 there. They stay about 12 feet off the ground and don't bother anybody. It sure is fun to watch the antics/acrobatics they go thru while catching bugs. When I was working on Mom's house I saw where a nail had pulled away from the soffit, so I figured something was in there. I got a ladder and started beating on the soffit until this little guy kind of glided out. It appeared that I woke him up. He was not happy with me, and in a couple of minutes flew away. I evicted him. Duane
