First off, I want to
explain the definition of exclusion for those that don’t know or think we’re
killing these very things we are so desperately trying to save:
If you already knew the
definition- 10,000 points smarty!
Since we crave and love our
sleep, we weighed our options and formed a plan to get the bats out for good.
The best way we found to do this was a Bat Exclusion process.
It involved some investigating, good 'ol fashion hard labor, some netting, and lots
and lots sealing.
**Warning there are some bats in this post, so if you
have a weak stomach or hate them, I’ll forgive you this time to pass on this
post, just this time. I do give sufficient warning.**
Slightly before August 15th (the magical date when
baby bats are able to fly), well after the demolition and bat house building, we
really dug right in. And when I say we, I should really admit- it was mostly
the boyfriend.
The final phase all began with a full fledge stake out which
lasted about a week. It mainly consisted of us braving it out at dusk shining a
spotlight at various places around the house to identify where they were
exiting.
Like one night for instance, at dusk, I drove the truck around
the yard (a little detour may have occurred once or twice, totally fun btw) and
positioned it in the back of the house where the beau removed the window.
As a side note, I
failed to mention that we borrowed a friends magnet sweeper (similar to this, which picks up nails) to scour the lawn
for any loose nails after we demoed the upstairs. Because in all honesty, who wants to replace expensive truck tires
when there’s tons of home improvement projects we could be doing that require
funding.
Meanwhile the boyfriend courageously went rogue and checked
the front two corners of our house. Sure enough my suspicions were correct; the
little buggers LOVED the window the boyfriend left open serving as a bat free-for-all.
That night, I counted about seven bats before the boyfriend
retreated to the truck and we compared notes. He found a few other normal entry
points such as these:
Our entry points were mainly on this side of the house:
Please don’t mind that
truck in the way, that was the side I was ‘assigned to’ that particular night.
Although we had one on the chimney and another underneath
some shingles on the opposite side of the house.
So as soon as we found the
main entry points, we gathered our materials. We searched all home improvement
stores asking for some type of netting, most stared at us blankly or didn’t
have anything that would fit. We were looking for small flexible netting that
the little buggers couldn’t penetrate. Finally, after the third visit we found the
best netting option at Menards.
You can find it here.
The other materials were things
we had laying around:
That’s good ‘ol duct tape,
scrap trim, a few scrap nails, caulk, spare siding, a circular saw, tin snips, and
an extension ladder. While we considered nailing every section, but that was
quickly nixed to avoid more places to caulk at the end. The only place nails were
used was by the complicated bay window. The rest were strategically tucked
under siding or shingles.
Then patiently waited for
August 15th, when it was go time. This is where the boyfriend took
over and hung the netting around the house like so:
Our method was basically to
hang the netting slightly above the entry points, pulling it tight enough to make
their exit somewhat difficult, and leaving an opening at the bottom for their
escape.
Please ignore how dirty the siding is. That is years of neglect my
friends. And it is on our list.
The objective was to direct
them to their safe escape but not allow them to re-enter. Sort of like a one
way door but with netting instead. Oh and we only completed one side of the
house at a time to allow any stragglers to safely escape another route.
Warning Bat photos ahead…
And because we wanted to
observe firsthand the fruits of our labor, we camped out that night. To our
surprise, it worked like a charm. Although we were thisclose to helping some
struggling bats, we’re happy to report they all safely made it out and
continued their job at eating those pesky mosquitoes. I think we started to
feel like these were our baby’s pets.
I think this one
looks like the batman symbol.
One of these days, I WILL
learn to take photos at night.
We left the devices up for
about a week just to ensure we didn’t have any strays and then worked on patching
the holes. The boyfriend went back up the ladder to caulk all openings by the
bay window and properly seal and close the open window.
Anyone else nervous
just looking at this? Power tools on a ladder- ack.
Using the saw he removed about
five inches around the perimeter to eliminate the old window edging and provide
a clean cut. He then replaced the siding by reusing some left over siding that
the previous owners graciously left behind in the rafters to close that sucker
up.
He removed the backing:
Scraped off excess gunk:
That man could be a
hand model.
Trimmed pieces to fit:
Caulked like crazy:
Replaced each piece:
Then caulked the edges (no photo). Once complete it looks
like this:
Of course it doesn’t match
perfectly, you know because the sun changes everything, but that’s ok, because
our addition will be going on the back of the house someday. And that someday
will require us to finally pretty-fy the exterior.
By the end of our
experience, I came to have a soft spot for the little buggers. The boyfriend even
lovingly joked throughout our struggles adventure that we should turn
Batman on for them to watch while we were away at our 9-5’s. Sure they mostly
cost us time and maybe $50 which mostly food for our loving friends. The things
good friends will do for food never ceases to amaze me. I think this little
saying sure is fitting:
Who knows, maybe we should go
into the business and charge for our services.
Have you gone through extreme measures to save something?
What type of (PG) activities do you fight for in the name of sleep? How about
randomly falling in love with something you never thought you could?
P.S. While we did a lot of
research and our methods seem to be working for bat exclusion, I do not commend
any of our strategies used throughout our excursion. Rather, just hire a
professional for your own sanity and if you enjoy sleep.
Want to follow along with
our bat expedition? Here’s Research,
Demo,
and Building Homes for our furry little winged friends.
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