Bat Removal in Atlanta, Done the Legal Way
If you are hearing scratching or chirping in the walls around dusk, you may have bats. All Georgia bat species are protected, there is a window every year when the work cannot be done, and getting it wrong leaves dead animals sealed inside your structure.
Call and describe it. We will tell you whether it sounds like bats, what the law allows right now, and what it takes to solve. No charge, and nobody has to come out.
Is It Actually Bats?
Most people call about “something in the attic” and are not certain what. Here is how bats differ from the alternatives.
Signs it is bats
- Activity that starts around dusk and quiets during the day, the opposite of squirrels
- Chirping or high squeaking, especially on warm evenings
- Scratching that sounds like it is inside the wall rather than across the ceiling
- Dark greasy staining around a gap in the soffit, ridge, or gable vent
- Small dark droppings that crumble to a shiny powder
- Bats visibly leaving the roofline at sunset
Signs it is something else
- Daytime scampering and heavy thumping across the ceiling is usually squirrels
- Night activity with gnawing along walls is usually rats or mice
- Heavy, slow, deliberate movement is usually raccoons
- A strong odor with no noise may be a dead animal
Not sure? Stand outside about twenty minutes before dark and watch the roofline. If it is bats, you will see them leave. Then call and tell us what you saw.
Talk to Michael
404-384-1597Bat work is one of the jobs we travel for. If you are anywhere between Griffin and Decatur, call.
Licensed for this specific work
Wildlife is regulated by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, separately from pest control. Michael Pope holds DNR license 22197.
Guarantee
Full exclusion work is guaranteed for a year, and you can renew it year to year for as long as you want the coverage.
Why You Cannot Simply Get Rid of Them
Georgia has several species of bats and all of them carry protected status. Because they are vital to our ecosystem and consume massive amounts of insects, the law requires exclusion methods rather than trapping or extermination.
Exclusion means the bats leave on their own and then cannot get back in. It is the only legal approach, and it is also the only one that actually works.
The blackout period
There is a window every year when the colony has young that cannot yet fly. Restrictions and guidelines apply to bat work during that period.
Seal a house in that window and the pups die inside your walls. What follows is dead bats in the attic, dead bats in the yard, a putrid odor through the house, and flies. It is a far worse problem than the one you called about, and it is not a fast fix.
If you call us during the blackout period, we will tell you exactly what we can and cannot do, and when.
This is the most common reason people call us after somebody else has already been out. A house gets sealed at the wrong time of year, and now the problem is inside the walls instead of outside them.
How a Bat Job Actually Goes
This is not a one visit service. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either not doing exclusion or not doing it correctly.
Full exterior inspection
We find every gap a bat can use, and that is a smaller gap than most people expect. This step determines whether the entire job works.
Everything else gets sealed first
Every opening in the structure is closed before the one way doors go up, so the colony does not simply relocate to the gap next door.
One way doors at the active entries
Bats leave to feed and cannot get back in. Nothing is trapped and nothing is killed.
Final entries closed permanently
Once the colony is out, the doors come off and the last openings are sealed for good.
Cleanup and treatment
Guano removed and the area treated. See the next section for the honest version of what that involves.
We come back and verify
A follow up visit to confirm nothing has found its way back in.
Guano Is Poop in Your Attic. Let Us Clean It Up.
A quick search will turn up plenty of scary talk about attic guano. Most of that is written to make you buy something fast, and we are not going to do that to you.
Here is the straight version. Guano is poop in your attic. There is no benefit to waiting and no benefit to skipping it. It will show up on the inspection report when you sell your house. There are real health considerations when it accumulates and gets disturbed, which is a good reason to let someone with the right equipment handle it rather than going up there yourself on a Saturday.
So let us clean it up and move on.
What we will tell you that others will not
Most homes do not need their insulation torn out and replaced. It gets sold constantly because it is a large line item, and most of the time people are talked into it. We do cleanup, not full insulation replacement, and we will tell you honestly whether yours is one of the rare cases that genuinely needs it.
What Drives the Price
We are not going to put a number on this page, because anyone who does is guessing. What we will do is tell you what the price depends on, so you know what you are being quoted on.
- How many entry points. A house with one gap is a different job than a house with eleven.
- How much of the structure needs sealing. Some homes need a few feet of work, some need the entire roofline.
- Height and access. Three story gables and steep roof angles take longer and take more equipment.
- How long they have been there. That determines the cleanup.
- Time of year. The blackout period affects when work can start.
Bat work is a larger job than most pest control, and it is usually the last time you will ever deal with it. Call, describe your house, and we will give you a real range before anyone drives out.
“Took the time to call and talk to me for 20+ minutes even though I was in a situation that he admitted he couldn’t easily solve. I appreciate his honesty, time, and transparency ESPECIALLY given the fact that he wasn’t making any money off of me.”
Michael's reply to that review
“Contrary to popular belief, it is very hard to grow a company by prioritizing the truth over sales. Thanks for noticing.”
Bat Removal FAQ
What about rabies?
Are bats bad to have around?
Can you just trap them?
How long does it take?
Can I do this myself?
Do you work inside the city of Atlanta?
Will they come back?
Tell Us What You Are Hearing
Describe the sound, where you hear it, and what time of day. We can usually tell you whether it is bats before anyone drives out.
Call 404-384-1597