As I was having my master electrician and his assistant come over to the house to install some ceiling fans and other electrical items, they were going to go up through the attic crawl space. Now this entry point is just 12 x 12 and so the assistant was going to cut the entrance wider so he could get up there. Before he did, he had the forethought to peek up there to see what he was going to cut first. I was at the ladder as this space is inside a closet in one of the rooms upstairs.
Then I heard him say, "Uh oh".
I replied, "Uh oh, what?"
He came down a step and looked at me and said, "You have bees up here. You have 40-50 beams going across and there is a nest about the size of my fist at every junction, some places, two."
Then we heard a squeak! He looked back up and said, "And you have bats."
Holy crap!
He called for the master electrician to come over and have a look and he poked his head up there and sniffed and could smell bat guano and said, "Yes, bats." He started to say he did not want..and I quickly finished his sentence and told him, "No, no, I don't want you up there either dealing with that. I'll have to get rid of those first so let's hold off on these ceiling fans for now."
I called the pest company I had previously signed with and they sent someone out to look. They also referred me to the wildlife side of their company and arranged for someone to come out to see about the bats. When the pest guy arrived, he looked and he saw two bats looking at him from behind one of the nests. He told me I probably have close to 100 nests of wasps or hornets up there.
So here goes the quandary, a conundrum for sure!
The pest/bee guy couldn't spray because of the bats. Bats are endangered and you don't want to kill them anyway as just one bat will eat a 1,000 mosquitos in one night! You just don't want bats in your attic crawl space as the guano and all is very bad for your health.
The bat guy didn't want to go up there into the attic crawl space and deal with the bees. These were not honey bee nests as again, you wouldn't want to kill those as we need the honey bee to survive on Earth. But they are hornet or wasps nests. I believe paper wasps. The good news is that some of those hives may not be active as they won't re-inhabit an old nest. Interesting there. The bad news, is that you can't tell if it is an active one or not.
Just to make things interesting, we need the 12 x 12 space widened in order for anyone to get up there.
The bee guy said when you go to make the hole wider, you have to hope you don't get too many bees mad at you at the same time. LMAO!
My thought to resolve this was for them to work together and to utilize bee keeper suits!
So talking to the bat guy, they gave me a quote. Very expensive ($1,100 over the phone to start with they said) for them to remove the bat and seal up the entry points so that it allows the bats to leave as they will each night to forage for food, but they can't get back in. It is a mesh they caulk in place and they can do it from the outside and not have to go up there. Then, he said they could cut the hole larger too on that day but that was another cost and after figuring things out, it was going to be $2,100 as I have such a large roof and it's two story and then another $6200 for them to remove all the soiled insulation and clean up the mess in there plus put back other insulation (better stuff too than what I had and that was one of those things I needed to have done that was on my checklist from the home inspection), a whopping total of $8,300! I was able to get a bit of a military discount and they were able to let me make payments, thankfully.
Now yes, I could have had Joe-Smoe do this for a helluva lot cheaper, but somethings I just needed to have done by professionals and this is one of them. They are giving me a 2 year warranty as well instead of 1 and I didn't want to worry about them being bitten or stung either.
So this is what they will do:
1) Bat people descend upon my house, stuffing mesh and caulking it into place all around the roof where there are crevices. They will also cut the hole bigger too for the entry point and we'll close it back it up with a board or piece of dry wall.
2) About a week later, the pest guy will return and get up into the attic and take care of the bees and remove the nests.
3) About 2 weeks after that, the bat people return and clean up the soiled insulation and the area up there and they will then blow new insulation in there.
Now something I will want is to see about having the holes filled and sealed up and then vent holes made in the sides of the house and proper ventilation/screening so that the bees can't return nor the bats.
Plus, I will want the entry point made to seal and framed out nice.
To answer a few questions I received from friends:
Didn't you have the house inspected?
Yes, I did have the house inspected and he did take a picture of the attic crawl space but it was only of the insulation to show I needed to have more put in there. He did not cast his camera upwards, otherwise, if he had, he would have seen the bee nests and possibly seen the bats or their guano on the insulation. This was mostly because he could not get up there as the opening is just 12 x 12, so when they opened up the hole, he just stuck his camera up there.
What happens to the bats afterwards?
I did buy a bat box/house kit and will put it together and then we are going to get a board and attach this to a tree, far away from the house that gets the morning sun. I also bought an attractant spray but the bat guy told me to wait to put this up until they go to do the clean up as they could rub some bat guano on it to let other bats know that bats had been there. Otherwise if I just put this up now, I've just put up a bee home as the bees will quickly take that over.
Someone asked me wouldn't the bats eat the bees?
Yes, if they happen upon some wasps or bees, the bats might eat them. However, what is happening here is what I like to call the "Ladyhawke syndrome". For anyone who has watched that movie, you'll get right away what I am talking about. If you haven't seen it, do so, it's awesome!
You see, during the day, bees/wasps are active but bats are sleeping.
At night, the bees/wasps are sleeping and the bats are active.
One other note is that bats are migratory so they will leave when it starts to get too cold. But I can't wait til then as all the damage they could be doing up there, just with the guano alone is a health hazard.
Bats also have their babies in the summer. So I have to hope there are no babies up there as the babies can't fly. I'd have to wait longer I believe to get them out.
Not a good situation.
The bat guys will be here next week to start this process so as I learn more, I'll share! :)
As I say on my Halloween blog...
~*Bugs n Hisses*~
GP
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