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Oh, Those Pesky Pests (Bat Edition)

Look way up and you can see how high those chimney cones are.

I have had a couple of questions about what happened to the bats that were in our chimney surround area. To be honest, I wasn’t sure, since I hadn’t
managed to see any more fly out. And what about the termites at Bobcat?

To get started, last week, professional pest control people came to our house and did some mysterious activity involving putting stuff in the walls, which necessitated Anita moving a BUNCH of stuff out of the storage rooms all by herself. UGH. They also put down some interesting looking dark green items in the ground around the house. I didn’t know what they were, but they looked impressive.

The dark stuff you see in the left cone is “evidence” of bats leaving.

They also spent a lot of time complaining about how high our chimney is, but managed to seal all around the top of it. They only left two cone-shaped openings. The idea is that the bats can leave, but not get back in. I guess it worked. Haven’t seen any bats.

Yesterday, yet another Chris, this one from ABC, came back to do a check, and I asked him all about this stuff.

Pest Report, Professional

The termite thingies contain some sort of pesticide that really, really makes termites go away. Chris said it would last 16 years. Shoot, I may not even last that long. I’ll stop worrying about termites, I guess, so $1500 is worth it!

And he expertly eyed those bat cones, and announced with great satisfaction that he saw evidence of bats leaving from the left cone. Well, hooray. I just hope there weren’t any babies in there. I don’t want to be responsible for that.

There are something like twelve of these potently poinsonous devices around the house.

Chris will be back next week to remove the cones, assuming all bats are gone. And now I don’t have to worry about bats, either. Way, WAY worth $300. So, if you’ve got these problems at a house you’re working on, I’d say, please go ahead and get the house treated for them.

Oh, and we also found out what kind of irritating ants are all over the deck when the regular pest control dude showed up earlier today. Anita can’t remember what they are, but it was an interesting name, she reports. The rather large ants come from the oak tree that touches the deck. The dude sprayed all around the bottom of that tree, so HA, ants! Go to some tree that doesn’t touch a house. We will trimthat one branch as soon as it’s no longer “oak wilt season.”

You are now up to date on pest issues at the Bobcat Lair.

Next up: Oh Those Pesky Pests (Mouse Edition)

Photo credits: Anita McCabe

 

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Bats in the Belfry? No, the Chimney

See those gaps in the flashing? So did the bats.

The Bobcat Lair always has some surprise for us. Here’s a story I also shared in my nature blog, The Hermits’ Rest. How many of you have had this to dealwith in your rehabs?

Earlier this week, right after sunset, Anita was gazing out the windows of the Bobcat Lair house. She turned to me and said, “Hey, I see swallows coming out of our chimney.”

“It’s not swallow time,” I replied, verifying the time on the handy Fitbit. “It’s BAT time.” I then briskly went out to see what was going on at the ole chimney.

Sure enough, two sturdy-looking bats emerged from the flashing around the chimney…right where we’d been noticing “mouse turds” for a couple of weeks (to our credit, they looked more like mouse turds than the squirrel alternative). I immediately googled “bat guano—images.” Yep, that’s it, all right. Guano.

There, now you can see the little holes better.

Now, I’m not surprised to see bats here. We had LOTS flying around our neighborhood at the Braesgate house, which was near the second-biggest Mexican free-tailed bat colony in the Austin/Round Rock area.  It was incredibly fun to watch them flying around the cul-de-sac and eating bugs.

Austin is known for bats and bat-watching. I like them, too. However, I’d prefer NOT to have them pooping on my deck furniture, and I certainly don’t want to risk a rabid bat falling into the mouth of the puppy I’m getting this week.

What to Do?

Yesterday, I put on my very fresh new Texas Master Naturalist hat and started making phone calls. The hardest part about bat control is figuring out who is in charge. I talked to Floyd at the Milam County AgriLife Extension (because I knew him, and I didn’t know the Austin staff), and he said I should call Animal Control, but that I’d probably need to have a pest control company come out. He was right. After a nice chat, it was concluded that Animal Control doesn’t “do” bats.

Click on the photo to see the droppings. There aren’t many, so we assume they have not been there long, and there aren’t very many. Large amounts of guano smell awful.

So, I called ABC Pest and Lawn, who get a lot of our money, thanks to owning so many houses. They like us. It only took three transfers to find out that we are in luck! Our pest control company has a specialist.

So, Francisco the bat man is coming by later this afternoon to assess the situation. Anita and I will be there to take some pictures and stuff. Rest assured, we will endeavor to harm NO bats. They eat bugs! They are cool flying mammals! My hope is that they will be “rehomed.” Or something.

Stay tuned for another installment tomorrow!

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