House guests...

With the appearance of summer, and as we start planning our interior and exterior home insulation, we've also started thinking about how nice it will be to have our home mostly sealed from creepy-crawlers. In my husband's case - this means spiders and for me - earwigs! (ew)

But - it wasn't until just recently that I realized this is also true of some of the bigger critters, too.

I was out hanging clothes on the line when I noticed a pretty unsightly pile of droppings below a vent hole in an unused chimney on the side of our house. It didn't take much to determine they were bat droppings. A lot of bat droppings.

While I have nothing against bats - and am actually happy to have them around, I know they're not the best thing for a home! Some facts (from the Humane Wildlife Control website):

1 - Bats can eat up to 3,000 insects in one night! Yes, that includes mosquitoes. On the flip side, if they're roosting in your home, they can also cause odor, damage and contamination.

2- Bat colonies can range from one to several hundred. Judging from the pile of droppings we have accumulating - we're definitely looking at more than one!!

3 - Bat colonies double in size every year. Unless they're removed (and the home sealed), bats do tend to return to the same property each year.

4 - Bats can bite. Although the rumors of bats getting tangled in your hair or sucking your blood are false, they can bite and are the most common carriers of rabies.

5 - A bat can produce several times its weight in waste each month. If inhaled, the droppings can actually cause histoplasmosis (identified as having flu-like symptoms).

6 - A bat can fit in a hole the size of a dime. Experts say that sealing the hole isn't good enough as the decay can cause waste and damage. The most effective way to deal with a bat colony is to get rid of all the bats and completely seal the entire building from further entry.

So, looks like we'll have to address our bat problem before we start insulating. I'm hoping we can find a new home on the property for our bat friends - because without a screened-in porch, we'll need all the help we can get against the mosquitoes!