How to Drive Away Bats

It is becoming more and more common to find bats in big cities. In the coastal areas of Levanter, such as Murcia or Valencia, it is quite common to find bats at night that spend their time flapping around the beach. In Madrid, where I live, it is also becoming quite common to find small bats that roam the gardens of the cities. In general, it is not a pest or an animal that is dangerous or aggressive. In fact, if you have a garden and a bat likes to walk around your land, you will see that in summer they are ideal for avoiding flies as they are one of their main sources of food.

However, if you don’t like them or they have started nesting on your property, you may want to know of a way to eradicate their presence or at least prevent them from living on your land. It is common, for example, to find them on the roofs of houses or on terraces.  In this article we are going to teach you some tricks to scare away bats. However, keep in mind that there are many countries where bats are a protected species and cannot be chased away, much less eradicated, so make sure you are not committing a criminal act before getting down to business with these tips. For example, in the UK it is absolutely forbidden to hunt or frighten them.

Is driving away bats dangerous or complicated?

No, it really isn’t. If you follow our advice you will see how, very soon, you will be able to drive away bats from your property. I personally love them and they are always a memory of the long, hot summer afternoons on the beaches of Murcia. When they started showing up in my parents’ garden I was so happy to see them. It was like meeting old friends again.

What do you need to chase away bats?

To drive away bats we will need

• Being aware of our actions
• Take care not to favor the extermination of a species
• Locate the points through which they enter
• Choose the right month
• Mothballs
• Water-spray

Instructions to repel bats

Step by step to drive away bats

1. A simple way to locate the areas through which they enter our homes is through the droppings. Feeding on insects, bat droppings contain a large number of exoskeletons that shine in the sunlight and are brittle to the touch. You have to be very careful not to accidentally inhale their feces, as they can cause histoplasmosis, whose symptoms are very similar to those of a common flu. They are especially harmful to the elderly and children. However, if you do not finish locating them through their feces. Bats tend to have some favorite places to sneak into our homes, such as loose tiles or tiles, the space where the attic meets the ceiling, broken or improperly installed mosquito nets, in the cracks where the coating forms corners and even in fireplaces.
2. When you manage to locate them, make sure that you evacuate them completely, do not leave young or nests anywhere on your property. Once you are sure that there are no bat nests left in your home, it is time to seal the places where they have sneaked. You can also use a metal mesh over the opening areas to prevent them from entering. One way to start the process is to take advantage of the 24-48 hours it takes for them to feed to start sealing the gaps. You should only permanently seal the holes when you are sure that the colony no longer remains inside your home.
3. Use mothballs. Mothballs are a fairly common remedy to ward off bats. The smell of mothballs repels them in such a way that you can prevent them from re-nesting on your land or inside your home. You can make small ones with mothballs and place them in the nests, once they have come out to feed, to prevent them from returning to the same place. If you combine the use of mothballs with the sealing of the holes through which they return to your home, you will be able to eradicate their presence within your land.
4. You can use bat repellent or the one used for dogs or cats. What you should do is spray it in the places where they usually stay or nest. Do it when they are not at home, that is, throughout the day, and thus you will avoid intoxicating them.
5. Hang balloons or strips of paper in the areas where they usually settle so they are scared when they move in the breeze. They will mistake these items for animals, so you can at least temporarily prevent them from returning to their usual spaces.
6. Spray the areas where they are located with water. First of all, you should look for the place where they usually rest. You can look at the places where you find droppings to know where to locate them. Look around the columns, on the raised bases; on the eaves of the roofs… they are especially attractive places for bats. Once you have located them, find a water spray and throw it on them. This will scare them, day or night, and they will flee in terror without causing any damage. Do this repeatedly so they understand that they will continue to be disturbed and that this is not just a momentary distraction. When you have managed to get them to leave, take the opportunity to spray the area with bat repellent and place strips of paper to scare them.

Tips for repelling bats

Last minute tips to keep bats away

Bats are social animals, the only way to get them out of a building completely is exclusion.

When deciding to keep bats away from your building or property, keep the seasons in mind. For example, it is not recommended to do it during the breeding season or in winter.

• If you get rid of them during their breeding period and you don’t know if they have had offspring in a nest on your property, the hatchlings will die malnourished and alone in a terribly cruel way. Also, keep in mind that many bats are considered protected species, so your actions can also cause the disappearance of a species. He estimates that the hatchlings take 5 weeks to become self-sufficient and that their breeding season usually occurs during the spring. If you don’t do it for them, do it selfishly thinking of yourself: if you don’t know where they place their nests, the young will end up dying alone and rotting, causing bad odors on your property. Consider that it is very difficult to find them.
• If you decide to chase them away in winter, the only thing you will achieve is that they flee from your home and have to be exposed to the cold, probably dying from the low temperatures and leaving your home free for the pests that the bats fight against.
• It is recommended that you ask and get advice on parenting times to avoid generating an irreparable situation. Remember that in certain places, such as the United Kingdom, bats are considered a protected species and therefore you will not be able to use any of the techniques that we have explained throughout this article.