Bats

You should try contacting Renata Platenberg.
When she worked with Fish and Wildlife, she used to make bat habitats/houses and knows a lot.
I'll pm you her e-mail. She's a reptile biologist and presently works for UVI.

Good luck, I hope you find a solution. However, I do envy you, when you have bats there are less mosquitoes! With all this rain I've been inundated with skeeter bites. We used to have numerous big bats swooping down at the pool at night ... pool empty, less bats .. I miss the bats, send them here. smile/wink

I have bats around my house and it is great since they eat thousands of mosquitoes.

The bat guano is great fertilizer for a garden. The plant store used to sell a small bag of guano for $35. Thus, you should give the guano to anybody you know that has a garden.

I agree, would love to have bat guano for fertilizer in our garden, but we've only had bat poo splatters/stains and not actual piles of anything that could be used in our garden, darn it!

I have bats around my house and it is great since they eat thousands of mosquitoes.

The bat guano is great fertilizer for a garden. The plant store used to sell a small bag of guano for $35. Thus, you should give the guano to anybody you know that has a garden.

Are you sure they are bat droppings and not from the thrushies or igaunas?
Bats usually do it in bush;) unless you have an unusual amount of insects at night at your residence.

Why would you want to eliminate bats???

Thanks everyone that's replied. The issue isn't the bats and their mosquito eating powers. It's the purple/brown poop that is covering everything...the walls of the house, the cars, the side walks....everything. I wouldn't mind them staying if it weren't for the poop everywhere. If anyone has used deterrents, even if to just keep them away from one area and in another, I'd love to hear about it.

Alana - Please send the contact info for Renata if you can. I'd love to ask her what may have changed that caused these guys to show up all of the sudden.

Thanks again!

kimd,

Friends of ours had a similar issue. Having to use a pressure washer to clean their house and pool deck several times to remove the purple stain. They were told they were a type of fruit bat that ate the berries off of a type of palm tree and also ate white berries off of a type of wood tree. Seemed to occur at least once or twice a year. They used bleach!

I did already send you Renata's e-mail but will do so again.
Bat's are an important species to our environment so if we can find a way to eliminate the problem without eliminating the bats,
it's a win-win.

Those purple berries are the worst. Can't remeber the name of the tree.
You really don't want them getting into your cistern and contaminating the water, which it will, if it does.

We have had the same problem for years - it looks like somebody has been chewing tobacco and spits wherever they want. I have never seen more than 2 or 3 bats flying around at any time, so it only takes a few to make a mess. And if you let it sit on a wall for a week or two (or more) then it will take the paint off when you do try to remove it. We have never had many mosquitos around our house so I don't know why they stay. It might be kind of neat when they swoop down at dusk to get a drink out of the pool while you are in it but obviously they are not very selective as to where their waste lands. I have never been hit by their tobacco juice yet but one day...

Those are fruit and fruit and nectar bats. The poop is a pain, tho they are also responsible for dispersing many many of our trees (genip and W.I. almond and fig among them) and pollinating many plants.
To avoid the poop situation, which is usually seasonal, you have 3 options I can think of: Remove the attracting plant, or plant something better a distance away (maybe papaya?), or sometimes you can string monofilament fish line in their flight corridor to discourage them or use tarps to protect key areas for the short fruiting period. Fish line can also work over pools. My preference, tho I used to work with them and raise orphaned babies (very smart critters), is to enjoy the free services they provide and the free artwork.

Easiest way to remove bat guano from a surface is to wet a small piece of paper towel with a soapy solution and stick it over the spot. You could use soap and water, simple green, etc.... The trick is to re-hydrate it.

Wait 10 minutes or so and it lifts right off. No paint damage.

While building a house on stx, had a bat move in, before doors and windows were installed. Next house we built, at least 1/4-1/2 mile away but same orientation, bat set up home again in the same location, upper SE corner of a second floor room on the western end of the building, with openings on the northern wall of the room where sliders/windows eventually went in...

We bought a good pressure washer and it was one of the best investments we ever made for our house! The bat and iguana guano washed right off.