I found a bat in my spare room late one night, I'm pretty sure my dog carried it down from the attic as it was on the floor and she was staring at it. I sent my brother a picture (I didn't know what it was) and he wanted me to remove it myself but I was too freaked out so I didn't, figuring he could deal with the removal the next day. The next morning it was not where I left it! The previous night I had shut the door, left the light on and put a towel under the door. I called HVWS that same morning it disappeared, and they were able to come the next morning and said it would be $135 (tax included) for an inspection (to see if I had a bachelor bat or a colony) and that would include removing my bat if we could find it. Which I thought was incredibly reasonable.
That day, my brother did come over and tried to help me find it, we tore the room apart. No bat. My brother said it probably left and I didn't think this was possible as we could not find areas it could get out without moving fixtures. So after he left, I turned the light off for the first time since the bat had appeared just for the heck of it (leaving the towel under the door as it had been). Within a few minutes I heard flapping!!! I couldn't believe it! Now I knew I had to somehow stick my hand in and turn the light on, since it kept flapping around and I knew it would fly around all night crapping on everything I owned. I called my brother and he couldn't believe it was still in there and also did not offer to come back to deal with turning the light on. My fear of the bat was overridden by fear of all my things covered in bat feces by morning (I use that room as a wardrobe and it is loaded with my clothes and accessories) - so I did turn on the light crazy fast (my wrist went unscathed and it stopped flapping (I didn't go in again)).
The next AM Neil from Hudson Valley Wildlife arrived right on time. He and I looked in the room some (no bat), then he did his inspection and write up. During this time I turned off the light in the bat room (the room it is in is very dark in daylight because of the window shades I have) and prayed I would hear flapping, but I did not. I was so nervous Neil would leave, and the bat would remain. Neil had already told me bats know it's not night despite the darkness of a room. The reason I am so impressed with this business is once he went over the results of the inspection (during which time Neil showed me some holes I could plug myself where things could get into my house - he also told me to get gutters and some other work done before worrying about protection against a bat colony (turns out my bat was a bachelor (woo-hoo!!!)), but I couldn't really celebrate with my bachelor bat hanging out in my wardrobe room unaccounted for still)... Neil said he would help me look for the bat in that room until he had to leave for his next appointment in Troy which was 10 am - he had got to my house at 8 am. My experience is not many business owners are willing to dedicate this much free time to helping a customer without charging something for it. The $135 single bat removal is the lowest price you will find, a lot of places give free inspections but charge upward $225 for a single bat removal. We tore that room apart again and eventually I saw the bat!!! It was hiding underneath a stuffed dog I use for my pin collection (everyone asks if I still have it - I do, I learned so much about bats over the time with my bachelor bat house guest, including that bats are meticulous animals and constantly preening themselves). Neil got his gloves, and he was able to humanely capture him and said he would release him back to the wild (Neil and his girlfriend fostered baby bats at one point in time). He got the little thing from his hiding spot - and if anyone reading this has a bat they are scared of, let me just say I felt so much empathy for this little creature by the end. When I saw him hiding he didn't even react, just stayed all hunched up. He had to have been starving by that point, too. Unless they have rabies (they die real fast with rabies, if my bat had rabies it would have been dead within a day) my experience has taught me not to freak out as they do not fly at you or toward the light even when they are trapped. Knowing what I know now, I would just go in a room and open the window if I was back in this situation (it would still freak me out not knowing whether it was in a room or not though, I wanted it gone because all I could picture down the road was finding it's lifeless body in a purse or something. I am an animal lover and I do not like to see anything suffer. So as long as your bat does not have rabies do not be scared, and definitely call this business my experience could not have been more positive and I was incredibly impressed with the degree of professionalism and expertise. I appreciated being given a quote with absolutely NO PRESSURE (or fear mongering), TY Neil!!! read more