I want to guess that you’re scared of bats like everyone else. They can become a nuisance and even embarrass you in front of your friends and relatives. When you notice that bats have invaded your garage, find ways to deal with them instantly.
While bats are considered very docile creatures, there are many things associated with them. The most common one is that they were the cause of the world’s deadliest pandemic in history—the Covid-19 pandemic.
Bats love dark corners, and this will be their most ideal place. Fortunately, your garage is a perfect station they will most likely spend their time at. If your garage has so many dark areas, you must expose them before bats find those areas as their home.
Since bats were associated with the world’s deadliest pandemic, most people don’t want anything to do with these creatures. Sure, they are harmless in most cases, but their sight irritates many people. In this post, I’ll walk you through various ways you can get rid of bats in your garage.
So without further ado, let’s get into it.
Read: 7 Effective Ways to Get Rid of Moths in the Garage
What Attracts Bats to the Garage?
When we reflect on the past, bats were associated with the caves. Usually, bats loved to hang around on rock surfaces, using their feet to support themselves while on rocks.
You’ll most likely only see one bat at a time invading your home, but they can be a colony of bats—this includes both the female bats and the baby bats.
That said, bats are primarily fond of darker areas, where they can hide without any disturbances. If you live in urban areas, bats will most likely invade your attic or your garage.
Besides darker areas, bats also love the presence of food. Just like any other animal, bats also rely on food for survival. Usually, when the sun sets, bats get out of their hiding places to look for food before heading back into their hiding zones.
Bats are the only mammals with the capability of flying. This means that bats can feed on insects, such as mosquitoes, moths, beetles, and other flying and crawling insects.
Besides eating insects, bats also feed on fruits, including bananas and mangoes. If you have bananas and mangoes around your garage, there are higher possibilities that bats might soon visit you, even in your house.
However, you need to understand something critical about bats—these mammals don’t have a good vision, so they use echolocation techniques to search for their daily meal.
Another exciting thing about bats is that they are excellent hunters—for example, a single bat can catch and feed up to 600 mosquitoes in just one hour.
In a nutshell, bats would move to food source areas and darker zones, where they’ll not get disturbed all the time. If you have any food in your garage or around your garage, please ensure that you have covered it properly to prevent bats from accessing it.
Where Do Bats Hide in the Garage?
Bats are harmful to humans, but they are also the scariest mammals nearly everyone wouldn’t want to come across. Sure, you’ll always deal with a couple of intruders in your garage, such as squirrels and lizards, but one thing that sets these apart is the fact that bats are much harder to spot and get rid of since they only tend to hide in dark areas away from the light.
The garage is a perfect hiding spot for bats, and it gets even worse when you don’t organize it properly. Bats love cluttered areas, and they get happier when those cluttered areas are dark. Behind your garage doors, on the ceilings, in between your garage walls, are some of the most common places you will find bats—so check these spots regularly.
Which Places in the House Do Bats Like to Hide?
Bats like to hide in places where they can cling and hang—on the ceilings, curtains, on your furniture, and any other place where they can hang. However, these are not the only places where bats do hide. Let’s look at some of the common areas these mammals feel safe:
1. Attic
In any case, you have a feeling that bats have invaded your house, check the attic first. It gets easier for them if there are vents or holes, making sure there are no holes or ducts in your attic.
Attics are usually warm and secluded, making them a perfect spot for these flying mammals. If you have an attic, make it neat so that you don’t attract bats. Arrange and clean the attic regularly so that you can eliminate any bats whenever you find them.
2. Chimney
If you still live in a traditional apartment with a chimney, start searching around your chimney to see if there could be some bats. These flying mammals love the chimney because it is darker and warm due to the hot passage of smoke.
Because bats are fond of hiding in the chimneys, an excellent way to keep them off is to purchase affordable chimney attachments that will prevent bats from making the chimneys their hiding spots. You can find these at your local stores—just research to ensure you’re getting the best deal.
If these affordable chimney attachments don’t get you the best results, get a modern chimney that doesn’t have openings. With this, you’ll be assured that bats won’t find their way into your chimney. That said, below are other areas bats might hide in your garage:
Other Areas Bats Will Hide
- Roofline— Another area where you’ll most likely find bats is the roofline. Before these flying mammals get into your attic from the garage, they’ll be hiding in the rooflines.
- Wall voids—Wall voids are also perfect spots for the bats, but these areas are mostly inaccessible, meaning that you’ll not get there to fetch these mammals.
- The shed—Sheds will make it in the list because they are primarily secluded, and bats love secluded areas, where they’ll not get disturbed.
- The garage—While the garage is mainly used for parking, sometimes people use it to store items. Bats will love this area, especially if it’s cluttered.
4 Amazing Ways to Get Rid of Bats in the Garage
And finally, we are in this last section, where we will be discussing various ways to get rid of bats in your garage. There are many ways you can eliminate bats from your garage, and it wouldn’t be a good idea to try out any radical measures before trying out these effective remedies.
If you want to get rid of bats from your garage, please don’t aim at attacking the bats. Make the environment unfriendly so that they can leave at their free will. This way, you won’t hurt them, and they won’t also have a chance of attacking you—win-win, right?
1. Scare them With Bright Light
I already mentioned that bats love darker areas, so they will always find squeezed and darker spots to hide and live.
If you have spotted bats in your garage and want to get rid of them, the best thing to do is wait until they have left in the morning. Once they’re gone, seal all the entry points so that they don’t find any openings to get through when they return.
Once you have sealed all the openings, the next thing you need to do is install some bright lights around your garage. Ensure that any dark areas have bright lights to scare them away when they return during the night.
And because bats like to hang on surfaces, you need to ensure that the lights are directly above so that the lights scare them away when they turn upside down.
If you have any projections, ensure that the light is directed towards them. Also, please don’t forget to illuminate the zone as much as you can.
Doing all these will change the area, and the bats will find it unsuitable, forcing them to leave for other darker areas. Sure, you’ll spend time and money during this process, but the hard work and investment will pay off in the end.
2. Subject them to Strong Heat
Bats don’t love too intense heat, so this is an advantage you can use to get rid of them from your garage. Therefore, find ways of how you can overheat your garage to make it unsuitable for them.
While it’s true that bats love warm zones, such as caves, they will not withstand scorching places. For example, bats will find hot areas, such as deserts, very unfriendly to live in. This is why excessively heating around your garage would help.
Purchase some small heaters from your local store or supermarkets and use them to heat your garage or house. However, you’ll first need to identify the specific areas in the garage where the bats are calling their home.
Read: 15 Clever Ways to Keep Birds Out of Your Garage (And Why Birds Like Garages)
Once you have found those spots, place your small heaters in those sections, then turn them on. Please ensure that they are not too hot so that they’ll burn or melt items nearby. Maintain around 100 °F, which will work just perfectly.
One thing you should note is that this heating method won’t generate results instantly. It will require you to be a bit patient—to leave the moisture to go away and leave the area dry completely.
Once the moisture has been drained and the area is dry, bats will find the zone too unfriendly to live in. Instead of returning to the garage, they will look for ‘better pastures’ and never return unless you get disorganized in your garage again.
3. Use Essential Oils
It’s hard to find chemical mixtures in the stores that will serve as bat repellents, but you can use essential oils to repel bats away from your garage.
If you don’t want to go through so many processes but still succeed in driving bats away, you can emit essential oil smells, and bats will find these smells unpleasant.
Bats don’t love the smell of mint or cinnamon, and one way to get them away from your garage is to mix these two properly and position them in their hiding places.
Alternatively, you can start by identifying the areas where bats are getting comfortable in your garage, then leave them to leave in the morning. Once they have left, you can spray the area using a mixture of essential oils.
One thing to note is that you must not excessively spray until wet. Just spray moderately as bats can’t stand the smell, so they’ll soon leave.
4. Fill Up Those Holes and Seal All the Cracks
Seal holes or cracks present in your garage. This is a straightforward process but a bit bulky, so set aside some time and do this properly if you want to ensure bats aren’t in your garage anymore.
Check everywhere that could be a hiding spot for the bats and ensure that you have sealed any holes and cracks. Start with the chimneys—ensure that there are no openings. Check inside the garage and see if you can spot any cracks and holes—seal any that you find.
If your garage is next to your house, you want to make sure that no openings and cracks lead to your home. Check around your house and seal any spaces to ensure that bats will not find their way into your house when they leave your garage.
Get Rid of Bats in the Garage Today
As previously mentioned, bats aren’t dangerous, but they can be a nuisance when they invade your compound—whether in the garage or your house. When you suspect that bats are around your compound, the best thing to do is to try and identify their hiding spots.
Once you have found where they could be hiding, take the necessary measures outlined in this post to get rid of them. If you don’t want to do this yourself, hire the services of a professional who’ll make sure these flying mammals are out of your compound.