12-gauge for bats???

One other opiton for driving them away--if you feel you must--is sound.

When I lived in the mountains of the Bay Area, we had skunks move in under our house. Several BAD incidents. We called every exterminator we could find to try to get rid of them. No one would take the job. Finally, one older secretary at one place told us the way she had driven some skunks out from her house. She said get a radio that will run on AC power (so batteries won't run out). Put it where you think it will do the most good, and turn it on and leave it on. Turn the volume up just loud enough that it doesn't bother you in the house. Leave it on for a week or so. They will leave. Then seal the area. Or make the radio a permanent thing.

Oh yeah, she said punk rock or heavy metal works best. Classical or soft rock may not have the desired effect.

Worked like a charm for us.

I also have a great technique for getting rid of cockroaches if anyone in the southeast or coastal Texas is intereted...
 
What's the cockroach idea? I don't have that problem anymore but I'm afraid that I might in the fairly near future.

Thanks,
UltimaSE
 
To eliminate cockroaches, put a flyer in the attic, written in ultrasonic script. Advertise the cockroaches to the bats. Leave kitchen window cracked and screen off. Do not disturb the roaches. Bats like them shaken, not distirred. If you have pack bats, they may leave skeeters in trade for the roaches.

Sam.......gotta get to work, whatever that is.
 
OK, the cockroach elimination technique. This was taught to me by my sister-in-law when we moved to Florida (FUD, are you listening?)

She is a bit of a "Granola", so when we arrived she told us to save the $25-$50 a month the exterminators would charge us, and just have our boys catch a few of those lizards which hang around the house. She (and the boys) called them "chameleons", but they're not the African chameleons. I think the correct name for them is Anoles. They change color from green to brown. Fairly easy to catch. I caught one myself.

Anyway, sis-in-law said that if we release 2-3 of them in the house, we will never see a cockroach again (in the house). I thought that was a pretty bold claim, but it was true. We never saw a cockroach in the house again.

My wife was a little squeamish about having reptiles run across her face in the night (my reply: would that be better than cockroaches on the face?) but sis assured her that the lizards are shy, and will rarely be seen.

She was right. I only saw a live lizard in the house once, after several months of cockroach-free living. By then it was a welcome site.

So we probably had one of the few completely cockroach-free homes in Florida during our stay there.
 
You're right, those are anoles. We had 'em in AL, too. My brother-it would take me a while to list all the animals he's had- would release geckos for that purpose.

Mike, glad you're aware of the rabies issue. I like the bat house idea- we can send Janet Reno there-no, wait- then all the bats would be rabid...
 
Ok, Mom's nixed the bat house idea, guys.

Her response?

"I don't want 100 bats flying around outside at night..."

My response?

"Would you rather have them flying around INSIDE at night?"

I think tennis season is going to be commencing at the 'rents place soon...

Oh, Mom likes some of your comments, especially those about Janet Reno, Sat. :)

------------------
Beware the man with the S&W .357 Mag.
Chances are he knows how to use it.
 
Mike; Do you have a fireplace? If so wrap the vent with 1/2" hardware cloth, if it isn`t already. Real old homes may not have a damper to keep the critters out.

------------------
"Defiance"
And yet...it moves
(Galileo Galilie)

[This message has been edited by B9mmHP (edited August 25, 2000).]
 
Getting back to the original question and just FYI. Shotguns don't work for bats. I've seen it. When I was a kid, we were visiting my grandfather and a bat got to pestering the folks sitting on the porch. (this was a farm BTW, not in town). One of my uncles went and got a 12 gauge to end the problem. But everytime a shot was fired, the bat changed directions so fast that the shot missed. We figure it must have something to do with the little guys "radar" and the fact that birdshot ain't real fast.
BTW: Grampa finally nailed the little sucker with a .30-06. He wasn't that fast! :eek:

------------------
Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.
 
B9,

they are definitely not coming down the fireplace chimney. The damper has been jammed shut for years, and the throat inside has been sealed with a foam rubber plug to keep heat from escaping.

------------------
Beware the man with the S&W .357 Mag.
Chances are he knows how to use it.
 
I can recall as a kid, going to stay at our land in IL. We never built on our lot, but a friend of ours did, made a small cabin. Anyhow, one night we're all sitting around in there, talking, and my older sister goes ABSOLUTELY (pardon the expression) BAT****. :D Seems one had gotten inside and decided her hair would make a good nest. It took about 10 minutes, but we finally got the bat off of her and outside...that was over 30 years ago, and she still gets teased about it... :)

------------------
Mike
mnealtx@yahoo.com
 
I had a problem with LOTS of very large flying bugs in the house a while back.
They were all over the ceiling and walls.
Thousands of them.
The wife had gone shopping, and left a door open that morning, and the house had literally filled up with new tenants by the time evening rolled around.
Some of them were so large that they could have sexually assaulted your bat. Nothing was working to get rid of them until I tried a can of AquaNet hairspray and a lighter.
The indoor flamethrower mowed them down like nobody's business.
Eventually, I ran out of AquaNet.
Rummaging through the wife's copious "beauty" supplies under the bathroom sink, I found a gallon of Salon hairspray, intended for use in pump sprayers.
Next, I found a large two gallon pump sprayer of the sort usually used in gardening.
Now we were going to do some Iwo Jima style bug slaughtering!
I filled it, and was immediately pleased with the results. I noted that the salon hair spray variety had a much longer burn time per burst, and produced a nice blue flame cloud that really worked well.

Then I came across the largest of the bugs.
I lit him up like crazy, and he went down in flames.
Unfortunately, he was still engulfed when he hit my couch. Evidently he had received a fairly wet blast of the hairspray, and failed to finish combusting as soon as would normally be desired.
When the bug hit the couch, the couch also burst into flames, as well as a considerable pile of freshly laundered, dry cotton towels that were on the couch. I got the couch put out, but received second degree burns on my hand while running the still burning piles of cushions and towels out the door.
After action report:
Filled the house with acrid couch pillow smoke.
Couch a total loss.
Towels all toasted.
Hand very painful.
Daughters all consumed in paroxysms of derisive laughter.

When the wife got home, she was pretty reasonable.
Her only comment: "No more flamethrowers in the house!"

We bought a new couch the next day.

In retrospect, I know now that I should have used a shotgun. Live and learn.
 
Remember that bats identify their home by scent i.e., guano or dung. And the house being that old means mucho piles of the stuff. So to remove the bats through exclusion - all they need is a 1/4 " opening - you really need to remove their stuff. Another hazard and nasty task for sure.
Best idea is learn to like them as they need a home too and they are serving a useful purpose. One of those 10 inch jobbers will gobble up to 1,500 bugs a night.
Bat houses are a fine ideal but will not likely compete with a fine old home that has been home for some time.
Bats be good!
Hi Mom!

------------------
"In my opinion, anyone pushing through anti-gun legislation is a bloody traitor and should be sent up for treason" N.H. Stuart
 
oberkommando: Yeah, and back when coins were made of real silver, you could grind up a quarter, sorta coarse, and add garlic and load this in place of the birdshot. I just don't remember how many vampires I did in this way!

If you have a bat flying through the house, close doors until you have it limited to one room. Tossing a large bath towel directly in front of it is usually an easy way to trap the critter. Then, just walk it outside and say, "'Bye, lil feller."

As usual, Art
 
Bottom Gun:

DO NOT I repeat DO NOT hang a photo of Janet Reno where the bats roost, they may go into a frenzy an attack you!

Pink Floyd tapes, I'll have to file that in my list of possible cures. Maybe old disco music and one of those rotating balls with flashing lights might work also?

Mike Irwin:

Tell your mom that the bats won't bother her outside, she will probably never even see any. They will however eat loads of insects. Bat houses are a good idea.

Geoff Ross
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Hookin up a full time light in the attic might do it.[/quote]

Last I heard, bats are blind. That's where they get the expression "blind as a bat". They use sonar to navigate. Would a bat know if you had left a light on?
 
Bats are NOT blind.
They have fully functional eyes.
The fruit bat (flying fox) is diurnal, and navigates by sight. They feed on fruit, and have no need of the sonar arrangement found in the nocturnal insectivorous, hemophagous, and nectar eating variants.

I know of only one intrinsically blind mammal species, the "blind mole rat".
Although they have eyes, they are vestigial and useless.
They do not fly. They burrow.
They also have the singular distinction of being a matriarchal, communal type of rodent.
they all serve a single Queen Rat.

The only "mammalian" species that is blind by choice is the "Liberal Democrat".
They are closely related to weasels, skunks and other muscalids, but have rodent-like tendencies as well. They also, currently, serve a Queen Rat...

I watched "Wild Kingdom" a lot when I was a kid...
 
Vampires! I just knew it was coming. Now for the silver bullets, crosses & garlic.

Mom doesn't want a 100 bats flying around at night. Hardly different than birds. They eat 1 1/2 times their body weight in insects.
Ever wonder why Purple Marlinn houses are so popular.
 
Here in Indiana bats are protected. Screw around with a bat colony and you can go to jail. They eat their weight in bugs every night. I have a friend who owns a private 50 acre lake; he attributes the absence of mosquitos to the large colony of bats nearby and would much rather have bat than bugs. We had an inground pool with underwater lights, and the bats loved it as the llights would draw insects to the water surface. Bats would swoop low over the water and scoop up the bugs. We could toy with the bats by splashing water into the air, and they would attack the droplets thinking they were bugs.
 
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