So — you have bats in your house. You can hear them in your attic. You’ve seen them come and go at night. But among all the unsettling questions that such a problem brings, the one that is top of mind for most people is, “How much is removing these bats going to cost me?”
At HY-C, we manufacture several bat exclusion solutions under our HY-GUARD EXCLUSION brand name. We’re also partners with the National Wildlife Control Operators Association (NWCOA) and the National Pest Management Association (NPMA).
When it comes to the question of how much bat removal costs, the truth is that there’s no easy answer. The process could cost you a few hundred dollars or a few thousand dollars. And anyone who claims to be able to quote you an accurate dollar amount without having seen your home and the extent of your bat problem is likely not supplying you with accurate information.
Bat removal costs vary wildly due to a myriad of factors, and there’s no way an article like this one (or any other) can confidently or honestly come close to offering you a valid estimate.
But what we can do is offer insight and education to help you understand what drives a professional bat removal estimate to empower you to choose the right services from the right company.
So in this guide, we’re going to examine the factors that go into determining the cost of bat removal from a home. And by the time you’re finished here, you’ll have the information you need to seek out an honest, reasonable quote from a pest removal company.
Factors That Determine the Cost of Bat Removal
The Number of Bats in the Home
Bats tend to live in colonies. And while it’s not uncommon to have just a few bats living up in your attic, if you don’t take care of an infestation quickly enough, the number present in the home can get out of control relatively quickly.
Unlike raccoons, mice, squirrels, or other nuisance wildlife, removing bats does not involve trapping them. Instead, you have to seal off all entry and exit points and install one-way devices so the bats can leave but not reenter.
This process takes time, patience, and expertise. The more bats there are in the home, the longer the process will take — and the more money it will cost.
The Expertise of the Pest Control Operators
Bat removal services are offered by a wide array of individuals and companies. From a sole operator with no formal training to a crew of five working for a national pest control company, the skill sets of those doing the actual dirty work varies widely — and so do their rates.
Trained professionals know the ins and outs of bats. They know their biological tendencies, their ecological habits, their mating patterns, the entry and exit points they tend to use on homes, and much more. Their expertise is built on years of training, education, and hands-on experience.
The vast majority of these kinds of pest and wildlife control operators work for companies who license and insure them. All of these factors contribute toward the price of your service. And while that service may cost a bit more than the friend of a friend who offers to do the job for $50, using a pro comes with much less risk (and, typically, much better results).
Building Construction
Where is your bat problem occurring? Is it happening in a single-story ranch home under a roof with a 2/12 pitch, or is it happening in a multi-story church with an ultra-steep, hard-to-reach roof?
The design and construction of the building itself plays a large role in determining the cost of bat removal. Larger, steeper, more dangerous structures maintain a higher risk factor for the operators involved. Removing bats from them costs more as a result.
There’s also equipment to consider. Ladders, harnesses, safety ropes, climbing anchors, and other gear cost money, and that cost is passed onto you. In some cases, it may even be necessary for the operators to bring in a boom lift or a scissor lift, and that isn’t cheap.
The structure of your building determines the kind of equipment the pros need to use to take care of the problem. And depending on the building, its design could add very little to the cost of bat removal, or it could add thousands of dollars to the quote.
Materials, Damage Repair, and Time
As mentioned above, the only way to remove bats is by installing some kind of one-way exit through which they can’t return. Most wildlife control operators use bat cones or bat valves, the cost of which gets passed on to you.
Depending on how many bats are present, your home may have experienced minimal damage from the critters or quite a lot of damage. In most cases, damage from bats occurs due to urine or feces (called guano) softening and ruining ceilings, drywall, or joists.
This damage needs to be repaired both to ensure the structural integrity of your home and to ensure there are no holes or cracks through which more bats may return.
Discovering entrance and exit points, installing one-way cones or valves, watching and waiting for the bats to leave, repairing any damage they may have caused — all of this takes time. Pest and wildlife control operators are paid for that time, and its length is reflected on your bill.
Installation of Exclusion Devices
If they got in to begin with, more may come back in the future.
Even when the last bat leaves, the threat isn’t over. The very fact that you had a bat problem at all means there’s some open, vulnerable spot on your home through which they were entering. And the last thing you want is to go through the whole ordeal all over again.
That’s where wildlife exclusion comes in. Wildlife exclusion is the process of covering vulnerable entry points with prefabricated solutions to prevent nuisance wildlife entry. And there are several ways to keep bats from coming back.
For example, you can cover your gable end vents with protective metal mesh screens. You can add roof vent covers to each of your roof vents. You can cover your roof offsets and roof deck vents with lengths of formed metal mesh.
Many pest and wildlife control operators are familiar with wildlife exclusion and can offer appropriate solutions to keep bats (and other critters) from getting back into your attic.
How Much Should You Pay for Bat Removal?
Now that you’ve had a chance to see the factors that affect the cost of bat removal, you may still be wondering, “But how much should I expect to pay to get the bats out of my house?” It’s hard for anyone to say without accessing your specific problem. So, start there.
Begin by getting quotes from trusted wildlife and pest control companies in your area. Ask them questions like, “How many bats are there? How are they getting in? What kind of damage have they caused? What kind of equipment, materials, and tools do you need to get them out?”
See how each company answers these questions. If there are any inconsistencies, be sure to point them out to each company and ask why their opinion is different from the other’s.
Once you understand how many bats you’re dealing with, the material and equipment the company needs to remove them, how much time it’s expected to take, and whether or not the company will install exclusion solutions, you should be left with an honest, accurate quote to take care of your bat problem.
