Bat Removal & Exclusion in Hoschton, GA

Bats in your Hoschton home

Hoschton is good bat country. The ponds in the newer communities, the creeks and the open ground left from the old farms produce plenty of night-flying insects, and the houses nearby offer places to roost. Around Hoschton, the species that settle into attics are mostly big browns and little browns, and the most common spot is a gable vent or a narrow gap along the roofline. Older frame houses downtown and brand-new homes both have these gaps.

Bats make very little noise, so most people find out from what's on the ground: a pile of small dark droppings under the same spot, sometimes with a brownish stain on the siding above it. That's good news if you'd rather not climb — you can find a bat problem from a patio chair. Bats are protected, though, and part of the year they have babies that can't fly, so when the work happens matters as much as how.

April 1 to July 31: the maternity season

Each year the window from April 1 through July 31 belongs to the mother bats and their flightless young. Close the openings then and the grown bats escape while the young starve in the roof. The work therefore gets booked ahead of that stretch, in early spring, or after it, from late summer on, when the young are flying. If the bats aren't causing a health problem, the usual advice is to wait out the season. If it truly can't wait, Georgia DNR allows exclusion inside that window when a licensed Nuisance Wildlife Control Operator does it. An inspection can be done any time.

Watching the exit from the ground

You can help the pro without a ladder. On a warm evening, sit outside about half an hour before dark and watch the roof where the droppings are. Bats come out one or two at a time around sunset. Make a note of the exact vent or gap and roughly how many you counted. That, plus a photo of the dropping pile, tells the pro a lot before they arrive. Don't try to block the opening afterward — that comes later, in the right order.

Droppings, histoplasmosis and a bat in the house

Guano is more than a mess. Dried bat droppings may hold a fungus behind histoplasmosis, a lung illness that hits older adults and anyone with a weaker immune system harder. Sweeping or vacuuming a roost puts spores in the air you breathe, so leave that to the pro. A single bat inside your living space is a separate concern: any bat can carry rabies, so never pick one up bare-handed, and if it turned up in a bedroom where someone was asleep, talk to your doctor or the county health department.

How a one-way exclusion works

Bats aren't trapped or killed. The pro finds every gap, hangs one-way devices (sometimes called bat valves) over the ones in use so bats can drop out to feed but can't get back in, and confirms by inspection that they've all left. Then the gaps are sealed for good. Most jobs take two or three visits; a small group in one gable vent may be done faster. Droppings are cleaned up once the bats are gone. Be a little skeptical if someone insists all the insulation must go; often only the soiled patch does.

Don't seal the gap yourself

It's tempting to caulk or tape the gap once you've found it. Doing that during the maternity season, or before every bat is out, traps bats inside the wall — and with a protected species, that can become a legal problem as well as a smell. Ultrasonic devices and sprays sold for bats don't drive a colony out. The safe order is always the same: inspect, let them out with one-way devices at the right time of year, then seal.