Bats, man

 

I thought I’d kick today off with something funny I saw. I’m not sure if it was a Far Side or just a random newspaper cartoon, but it was four grey haired ladies and Bruce Wayne in his superhero costume sitting at a bus stop, in that order, with a caption that read “Nanna, nanna, nanna, nanna, Batman!” I got a good chuckle out of that but, sometimes as a landlord you get calls that are no laughing matter. Let me tell you about one.

I recently had a tenant contact me, out of the blue, and in an excited state. The reason for that excitement was they had bats flying around their house. Now I’ll be honest, these particular tenants are transplants from northern cities and I assumed they were just mistaking common country occurrences, like bats flying around streetlights at night eating bugs, with something to actually be concerned about. But to my surprise, the video they sent me told a different story. The bats were swarming the house.

 

The next day, I was at the house, and bats, to the tune of 20-plus, were sleeping on exterior walls, in the gable vents and hanging on the walls under the carport. We even found some hanging on the brick ledge that was under the exposed side of the carport only a few inches off the ground. This was way more bats than I’d ever seen, and truthfully, I had no idea what to do.

 

So, I made a few calls and got in touch with one of my trusted pest control guys, Jordan Stone, of Total Pest Control. Jordan has removed some squirrels for us from an attic, done animal proofing and has done a great job lowering the mosquito population at my personal house without killing the honeybees. I forwarded Jordan the video and he recognized that they were brown bats, and he told me to caution the tenants not to touch the bats because they can carry rabies.

 

Next, he said most of the time bats move on their own, but we could set up an owl mannequin around the area to speed up the process and scare the bats into moving. So, I went to Home Depot and got an owl decoy with a head that swivels with the wind. This particular model is one you have to put sand in to weigh it down. So, I filled it with sand at the house and placed it in clear sight of the carport area below the gable vent.

 

Two days later, the tenants reported the bats were gone. Or so we thought.

 

One month later, I got a call in the middle of the night. And no, I didn’t answer. It was after bedtime, but my tenant was pretty frantic. They had come home to find a bat on one of their pillows inside the house! That could give anyone a start, and probably lead to some bad dreams.

In the morning, I checked in with them, and they were able to wrangle the bat outside. I immediately touched base with Jordan again and he was out there to inspect within a few hours. He found a gap where the bat could come in, and he sealed it off. He then set up an exclusion system on the gable vents, which is a two-part system. This first part is on the outside and is designed like a one-way door to allow the bats to leave at night, but not be able to return. Once gone, the second part consists of Jordan putting a screen over the gable vents to ensure the bats can’t gain access to the attic.

 

The last thing Jordan had to do was a big surprise to us. He noticed that these bats had a parasite called “bat bugs.” I’m not making this up. Apparently bat bugs look like bed bugs and can bite in a similar way. What can happen is if bats that have bat bugs get into an attic and then leave, the bat bugs will look for a different source to feed. This would include people and pets. That being said, bat bugs can only reproduce on bat blood. So left untreated, they’ll die out in a year or so.

 

There’s no way we would allow that in one of our rentals. So, we got Jordan to treat the house including the entire attic.

Now, I’ve lived in the south my whole life. I’ve climbed trees, camped and been in multiple caves. I’ve been all the way down to the waterfall in Pettyjohn’s Cave under Pigeon Mountain over in Chickamauga and only ever seen a bat or two. I’ve been under all sorts of houses and climbed through attic after attic, and I’ve never encountered anything like this before.

 

When you’re an investor, sometimes crazy things happen that you have no control over. I mean, seriously, of all things that could’ve come in, who would’ve thought it would’ve been bats, man. But what you can control is how you react. For us, a quick response followed by immediate action was important. We want our houses to be safe, secure and pest free, and thanks to Jordan of Total Pest Control, those are all taken care of.

 

Joe and Ashley English buy houses and mobile homes in Northwest Georgia. For more information or to ask a question, go to www.cashflowwithjoe.com or call Joe at 678-986-6813.