How to Remove a Live Bat from Your Home

Contrary to popular belief, bats do not normally attack people, get stuck in your hair or try to bite your neck. Actually, bats are quite valuable to our environment because they eat thousands of mosquitoes and other insects at night. One bat alone can eradicate 500 to 1,000 mosquitoes an hour. So you can see why it’s good to have bats around the outside of your house. When one happens to get inside, though, it’s time to learn how to remove a live bat from your home!

The first thing you need to remember when a bat gets in your house is to stay calm. Flipping out and being scared isn’t going to help the situation. Staying calm will also help other people in your house be more relaxed and level-headed as well.

Next, start closing room doors in an effort to contain the live bat to one room only. If it’s hard to do this because it’s flying through from room to room throughout the house, then start at the outer rooms. Walk into a room, turn on the light, check to make sure the bat isn’t in there, then exit the room and close the door. Then, proceed onto the next adjoining room. This process can go faster if you have at least one helper doing the same thing on the opposite side of your home. Keep doing this until you have captured the live bat in one room.

Now that the bat is contained in one room, open the windows and any outer doors. Bats are naturally attracted to lights, so turn off the lights in the room. It’s usually pretty easy to remove a live bat from your home because it wants to return back outside as much as you want it to leave.
In an effort to escape, the bat should find the open windows or door and fly back out soon.

If, by chance, the live bat has a problem finding its way out of your home, or, if it lands and doesn’t take flight again, you can give it a helping hand. You can use a large piece of cardboard and a fishing net or a gallon bucket to gently capture the bat. But first, put on a pair of heavy gloves before you remove the live bat from your home.

Then, use the piece of cardboard to quickly, but gently, scoop the bat into the gallon bucket or into the fishing net. Quickly place the cardboard over the top of the bucket or the net so the bat can’t escape. Take the bat outside as far away from your home as possible and set it free.

Note: It’s important to know, that, if anyone in your household was bitten by the live bat, then you’ll need to capture it and call your local health department so it can be tested for rabies.

And finally, if the live bat didn’t enter your home through an open window or door, or come in from the fireplace chimney, you should inspect your home to find out how it got inside. Check your attic for holes and cracks that can allow bats, as well as other wildlife, to enter in. Bats don’t need a lot of space to crawl into your home. An opening that measures a mere half inch is an open door for a bat.