The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Smallholding => Wildlife => Topic started by: Bionic on July 22, 2012, 09:51:51 pm
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The last 2 nights I have had bats in my living room. 2 last night and 1 tonight. No windows have been open. Could they be coming down the chimney and if so, any idea how to stop them?
Sally
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You have probably got them living in your building somewhere. What older properties in this part of the world haven't. Could be in your loft or fascias they are probably on there way out to a night of feasting. Don't forget bats are protected.
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I see quite a lot of bats outside in the evenings and realise that they live somewhere but I'm just not keen on them in my living room.
As the fire isn't in use this time of year I might just put something in front of it and see if the situation changes. That way, if it is where they are getting in, they will just go out through the top of the chimney rather than the bottom.
Sally
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We have them most nights but I have never found out which of our buildings they live in.
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I found some holes at the top of the stone wall on the living room side of the chimney. OH filled the gaps tightly with newspaper and I haven't seen a bat indoors since.
There was some useful information on the internet which says its ok to do that and then to block it permanently later in the year.
Sally
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Hmm, interesting, we had damp appear on our gable end bedroom and investigation resulted in an entire wall filled to the brim with bat poo. My daughter and myself stood at another bedroom window and counted 21 bats coming out at the eaves, they are back we just left them. I understand they go away for the winter and return late spring. I think they are in all the buildings here, they are protected so just leaving them, they will have lived here longer than we have no doubt.
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I was just showing my first visitor/guest round on Monday (my sister) and said this is your bathroom and then I saw a bat on the floor :(
Luckily she thought it was lovely. It was very tiny and she picked it up and had a good look before putting it outside on the window ledge.
Sally
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I think they are lovely too :thumbsup:
Lots of them around here. Our neighbour was told off by the bat people for picking them up without wearing gloves. They told her about various risks .... so put your gloves on Bionic .... assuming you didn't of course. ;D
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My sister picked the bat up not me but she wasn't wearing gloves. She did wash her hands afterwards though. When OH put a bat outside he caught it in a box so didn't touch it either.
I will remember about the gloves though. thanks
Sally
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I picked one up beside one of our duck houses a couple of months back - thought it was a slug - smooth and shiny - was surprised when it flew off! No idea what it was doing there.
A lady I know with a rather large house told me that part of her ceiling collapsed in a bedroom because of the weight of the bat poo. She also had a bat on her living room curtains - someone commented to her how seasonal it was that she put pretend bats on her curtains (it was near halloween), and then it started to fly around.
Perhaps they were vampires :thinking:
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;D ;D ;D
Yeah, my neighbour says she finds them in her curtains and one neighbour found about 8 dead in his vase :'(
A couple are converting an old school house near here and all sorts of rules and regs are being applied due to bats in the attic. They have to board the loft so that they can sweep out the droppings regularly .... to prevent a collapse obviously! :o
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i think it is illegal to handle bats unless you have been licenced to so also you can get rabies from them if they bite you :farmer:
but they are nice over 20 years since i seen a bat close up although we have them here every year :farmer:
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We've recently realised we have noctules (Britain's biggest native bat) here as well as plentiful smaller ones. I'd love a Bat Detector so I could hear their comings and goings, and get confirmation of which types we've got, but they're pretty expensive and I can't see I'd use one that much. Maybe I should just see if anyone wants to organise a Bat Walk to see / hear our noctules... :thinking: