The Five Stages of Bat Control

Why Homeowners Usually Get Ripped Off Before They Accept the Only Real Solution

There is a predictable little journey people take after discovering bats in their house.

I have watched it play out thousands of times over 38 years. Different people, different houses, same story.

A bat shows up in the bedroom. Somebody sees bats coming out of the roof at dusk. Droppings appear below an overhang. There is chirping in a wall or scratching in the attic.

The homeowner calls me and asks the question they desperately want answered:

“Can you just find the one hole, put up a bat door and fix this for a few hundred dollars?”

No.

That does not work. It never has, and it never will.

The only dependable solution to a residential bat problem is to bat-proof the entire house and then humanely exclude the bats. That is usually a substantial amount of work, and nobody is happy to hear it.

That is where the five stages of bat control begin.

Stage One: Denial

“We Must Have left the patio door open that evening.”

When bats repeatedly appear inside a house, they are coming from somewhere within the structure. They may be living in an attic, wall cavity, chimney chase, soffit or another hidden part of the building.

Even in the extraordinarily unlikely event that a bat did fly through an open front door, why was it hanging around the doorway in the first place?

Bats that rest under porches and overhangs are night roosting. They often choose to rest between feeding session on the overhangs and porches of the houses they live in. It’s no fluke and it still tells you there are bats living in the house. So even if it did fly in your front door (it didn’t but whatever) its still a bat living in your building and they don’t live alone. And most importantly it was not a fluke.

But homeowners usually need several “flukes” before denial starts becoming difficult to maintain.

One bat is a fluke.

The second bat is a coincidence.

The third bat is apparently an unusually persistent series of flukes.

By the fifth bat, even the family optimist begins to suspect the front door may not be the problem.

Stage Two: Bargaining

Once people accept that the bats may actually be living in the house, they begin bargaining with reality.

They still do not want complete bat-proofing. They want a cheaper version of complete bat-proofing that does not involve completing the bat-proofing.

This is where the magical products enter the story.

Bat houses.

Ultrasonic noisemakers.

Mothballs.

Bright lights in the attic.

Sprays.

Peppermint oil.

A plastic tube stuck over one opening.

A guy somebody knows who “does pest control.”

People love these ideas because they are cheap, simple and emotionally painless.

A bat house costs far less than repairing a house. Therefore, people want to believe the bats will pack up their belongings, move out of the insulated attic and relocate voluntarily into a wooden box nailed to a pole.

They will not.

You do not move out of your house and into your garden shed simply because somebody installed one. Bats are no different.

Ultrasonic devices are another favourite. Plug in a plastic box, let it make an invisible noise and wait for decades of structural defects to repair themselves.

Unfortunately, sound waves do not seal soffits, screen roof vents or repair chimney flashing.

Mothballs do not bend metal.

Lights do not close construction gaps.

Sprays do not rebuild roof intersections.

And a one-way bat excluder over one opening does not matter if the house has hundreds or thousands of other gaps available.

But all these things are inexpensive enough to feel worth gambling on.

That is how people begin getting ripped off.

Stage Three: Anger

Eventually, the bat house does nothing.

The noisemaker does nothing.

The mothballs make the attic smell terrible but otherwise do nothing./

The pest-control guy seals three obvious gaps, installs a plastic cone and announces that the problem is solved.

For a while, the house may seem quiet.

This is where bat behaviour helps bad work look successful.

Big brown bats often live in small, highly transient groups. They move between houses, change roosting areas and may disappear for extended periods. A homeowner can go months—or sometimes years—without seeing another bat inside.

That does not necessarily mean the house was properly fixed.

It may simply mean the bats have not yet exposed the failure.

Then another bat appears in the bedroom.

Now the homeowner is angry.

Angry at the noisemaker.

Angry at the wildlife company.

Angry at the bats.

Angry at me for explaining exactly what would happen before it happened.

They say:

“But they put an excluder over the hole.”

Yes.

And what about every other opening they did not seal?

You cannot successfully exclude bats while leaving them a selection of alternate entrances. When bats leave a familiar roost and discover that their main opening has been blocked, they search aggressively for another way back inside.

Miss one usable gap and they will find it.

That is why the excluder itself represents only a tiny part of proper bat control. The overwhelming majority of the work is preventative construction: sealing, screening, fastening, flashing and modifying the exterior so the bats have nowhere else to go.

Without that work, the excluder is nearly useless.

Stage Four: Depression

This is the stage where reality arrives carrying an invoice.

The homeowner has tried the bat house.

They have tried the noisemaker.

They have sealed a few openings.

They have hired a general wildlife company.

They have paid for work that appeared successful until it was not.

Now they realize the unpleasant truth:

The entire house must be bat-proofed.

Nobody wants to spend thousands of dollars on bat control.

I understand that completely.

It is one of the least exciting things on Earth to buy.

A new kitchen is expensive, but afterward you have a new kitchen.

A vacation is expensive, but afterward you have photographs, memories and perhaps a sunburn.

A new computer is expensive, but at least a box arrives.

When complete bat-proofing is done properly, nothing happens.

That is the product.

No bats appear in the bedroom.

No droppings accumulate in the attic.

No scratching comes from the wall.

No frightened family member wakes you up at two in the morning.

You spend money so that absolutely nothing happens, and you cannot even brag to your friends about the beautiful new chimney flashing hidden three storeys above the ground.

It is not fun.

But neither is repeatedly waking up with a bat flying around the bedroom.

Stage Five: Acceptance

Eventually, people call me back.

Sometimes I have spoken with them every year for four or five years.

Each year, we have roughly the same conversation.

I explain what has to be done.

They tell me they are not ready.

They try another inexpensive solution.

The bats eventually return.

Then one day they call and say:

“Fine. You were right. We tried everything. When can you come?”

That is acceptance.

The amusing part is that after thinking about the decision for five years, they suddenly want the work done tomorrow.

For years, complete bat-proofing was apparently unnecessary and outrageously expensive.

Then acceptance arrives, and it becomes an emergency.

People are remarkably predictable.

Why Wildlife Companies Fail So Often

Most general wildlife companies are not deliberately trying to rip people off.

Many mean well. They work hard. They may be perfectly capable of handling raccoons, squirrels, skunks and birds.

But complete bat-proofing is not ordinary animal removal.

It is specialized exterior construction.

You need to understand how roofs, soffits, fascia, masonry, siding, chimneys, vents and flashing systems are assembled. You need to understand how materials expand, contract, overlap, drain water and move air.

You need the correct sealants.

You need sheet-metal skills.

You need to fabricate custom flashings.

You need to modify vents without destroying their function.

You need to identify extremely subtle entry points used by small, transient bat colonies.

And you need to know how to install excluders safely, legally and correctly.

A regional wildlife franchise simply may not receive enough complicated bat jobs for one technician to develop that level of expertise.

They can call somebody a “bat specialist,” but the title means very little if that person handles two bat jobs, six raccoons, nine squirrels and a family of skunks every week.

Bat control is our entire business.

I hear the failure stories constantly:

“They sealed around the chimney, but the bats came back.”

“They put a tube over the opening, but now bats are appearing inside.”

“They said the work was guaranteed, but the guarantee only covered the spots they happened to touch.”

“They told us it was fixed three years ago.”

The bats do not care what the invoice said.

They care whether an opening remains.

Homeowners Are Their Own Worst Enemies

Here is the uncomfortable part.

People often get ripped off because they are primed to believe the person offering the answer they want.

One person says:

“This is a major structural problem. The house needs extensive bat-proofing. It will involve a lot of labour and cost several thousand dollars.”

Another says:

“I can put up a little plastic tube for $400.”

Which answer does the homeowner want to believe?

Obviously the second one.

Not because the second person is more knowledgeable.

Because the second answer is cheaper.

The homeowner is not stupid. They are human.

They desperately want the inexpensive explanation to be true.

The people selling useless products understand that.

The companies selling incomplete work understand that.

They are not merely selling bat houses, noisemakers or plastic tubes.

They are selling hope that the homeowner will not have to pay for the real solution.

That hope is extremely marketable.

It just does not keep bats out.

The Husband Who Was About to Become the Only Casualty

I once spoke with a couple who had bats appearing inside the house.

The husband was not particularly bothered.

His wife was terrified.

I explained that proper bat-proofing would cost thousands of dollars. The husband did not like that answer and decided the bats were not dangerous enough to justify fixing the house.

Later, he called me with his wife on the phone and asked me to explain that the bats were unlikely to hurt her.

I told her the objective risk was low.

Then I told them nobody was likely to die—except possibly the husband.

He said:

“What do you mean, except me?”

I told him:

“Because your wife is terrified, she has clearly explained that she is terrified, and you are trying to win an argument about statistics instead of listening to her. The bats probably won’t kill you. Your wife might.”

The point was not that the bats were especially dangerous.

The point was that fear does not disappear because somebody wins a debate.

If bats are repeatedly flying through the house and one person cannot sleep, the problem is real regardless of how calmly the other person discusses probabilities.

Fix the house.

Save the marriage.

Possibly save the husband.

The Only Solution That Actually Works

There is only one dependable solution to bats living in a residential structure:

1. Find the active entry and exit points.
2. Bat-proof the entire exterior of the house.
3. Install properly designed one-way excluders at the remaining active openings.
4. Allow the bats to leave humanely.
5. Remove the excluders and permanently close the final openings.

That is it.

Everything else is a delay.

Bat houses do not fix houses.

Noisemakers do not fix houses.

Mothballs do not fix houses.

Sprays do not fix houses.

Sealing two holes does not fix a house containing hundreds of other construction gaps.

A plastic excluder by itself does not fix anything.

Complete bat-proofing is difficult, tedious and expensive.

It requires the right materials, the right tools, a great deal of experience and an unreasonable amount of patience.

It is not the answer people want.

It is simply the answer that works.

Not Ready to Hire Us Yet? We Understand

If you are not ready to hire us, we understand.

Complete bat-proofing is expensive, unexciting and probably the last thing you hoped to spend money on. Sometimes people have to complete the entire five-stage journey before they are ready to accept it.

So buy the bat house.

Plug in the ultrasonic noisemaker.

Scatter mothballs around the attic.

Seal the two holes you can see.

Hire the wildlife guy who says he can fix everything for a few hundred dollars by sticking a plastic tube over one opening.

We get it. You want the cheap, simple solution to be real.

It is not, but sometimes people need to prove that to themselves. They need to waste some money, get ripped off once or twice and watch the bats come back before they are ready to hear the truth.

When you have tried everything else, reached acceptance and are finally ready to fix the house properly, call us.

We will still be here.

Uncle

Eventually, nearly everyone reaches the same point.

They have tried denial.

They have bargained.

They have become angry.

They have become depressed.

Finally, they accept reality.

They call and say:

“Okay. Uncle. Fix the house.”

And once the work is done properly, the bats leave, they cannot return, and the whole exhausting cycle ends.

Nothing happens.

Which, in bat control, is exactly what you paid for.