What is the best material to exclude bats?

If you are looking to keep bats out of your home you may find that this is quite a chore. Because of how small these little critters are, they are able to maneuver themselves into a lot of places that other animals simply would not fit into. This makes them a real challenge to keep out.



There are lots of materials you can get to try to help you, which will be discussed, but the best thing that you can use to help you to keep them out is your brain. You need to spend a few minutes looking around your home and find if there is anything that you see that will make your home more inviting to a bat. If so then this is the place to begin at to make your repairs.

The most common place for a bat to come into your home is into your attic. They love attics because they are usually dark in the daytime, something these nocturnal animals crave. You want to do a thorough look at the outside of your home and make sure that there are no small crevices or cracks where the bat can get inside. If so then you want to get some material to seal this, like caulk or something else that can harden and close the gap. Inside the caulk make sure that you add a material like steel wool which will make it irritating for the bat to chew on that.

If you find a board is loose, simply nail it back tightly against your home, but it is still a good idea to seal the board as well. This will keep the board from coming loose again. If you have spots near your home where you know that there are large numbers of insects, like wasps, beetles, or roaches, then you will want to do what you can to eliminate these as well. While bats will fly a long distance to get food, no sense in making it simple for them. Bug poisons are a good thing to have to keep them away.

There are some commercial repellants you can buy that can have limited success, but it is all about the placement. You need to place this in a spot where you know that bats may try or have tried to get into your home. If you found that a bat was getting into your attic through a hole and you sealed the hole up, then it is a good idea to add repellant to the siding around that.

Go back to the How Do You Get Rid of Bats in Buildings home page or email me for more information about What is the best material to exclude bats?