Bat Removal & Exclusion in Snellville, GA

Bats in your Snellville home

A bat doesn't damage your house to get in. It waits for the house to open up, and a home built in the 1970s–90s has had decades to do that. The usual openings on a Snellville house this age are the open ends of a ridge vent where the end plug has blown out, the gap behind drip edge that has pulled away from the fascia, gable-vent screening torn behind the louvers, and the edges of a rusting chimney-chase cover. A bat needs a gap only about as wide as your finger.

Bats are quiet. You won't hear chewing, and many homeowners never see them. The most reliable sign is droppings on the ground below the entry, piling up on a patio, a deck rail or along the foundation. In Georgia attics the usual species are big brown bats and little brown bats. They're protected, which shapes the whole job: no killing, no poisoning, and nothing done while the young can't fly.

April 1 to July 31: the maternity season

From April 1 through July 31, female bats are giving birth and nursing pups that can't fly. If the exits are closed during that time, the adults end up outside and the pups starve inside. That is cruel, illegal for a protected species, and leaves a smell in the wall. Unless the bats pose a real health risk, the right call is to wait until August, or to exclude in early spring before the pups are born. When a colony does have to come out during the season, Georgia DNR allows it only when a licensed Nuisance Wildlife Control Operator does the work. An inspection can be done any time to plan ahead.

Why the droppings matter

Bat droppings, called guano, pile up under the roost night after night. Dried guano can carry the spores of Histoplasma, a fungus that causes the lung infection histoplasmosis when the dust is breathed in. So guano should be removed with containment and protective gear, not swept out with a shop vac. Here's an honest point: removing guano doesn't always mean replacing all the attic insulation. That gets recommended more often than it's needed, so ask to see how far the droppings actually reach.

Finding every seam on an older roof

Bats use whatever gaps a roof already has, so the inspection has to cover the whole roofline. On a Snellville house that usually means checking both ends of every ridge vent, the drip edge along each eave, the corners where a soffit return meets the wall, the gable vents and the chimney chase. Brown staining around a gap and droppings below it show where the bats are going in and out. Seal most of the gaps and leave one, and the colony simply moves to that one.

How exclusion works

Once the exits are found, the pro fits each active one with a bat valve, a one-way tube or netting that lets bats fly out at dusk but not back in. All the other gaps are sealed right away. The valves stay up for several nights, and the pro checks visually that the bats are gone. Then the valves come down and those last exits are sealed with metal or other durable material. Most jobs take two or three visits. A colony using only a gable vent, not the attic, is usually smaller and faster.

What not to do

Don't caulk or foam the gap the day you spot it. During the maternity season that traps pups inside, and at any time it can trap adults that haven't come out yet. Ultrasonic devices and spray repellents don't work on bats, and mothballs should never be used in an attic for any animal. If a bat gets into a bedroom or living area, don't handle it bare-handed. Any wild mammal can carry rabies, and a bat found near someone who was sleeping may mean calling the health department.