Bat Feces in the Attic - Photographs, How to Clean

Of course bats always deficate and urinate in the attic. This can cause odor problems, a breeding ground for mold, is host to potential pathogens and health risks, and the odor can contain odor that attract other bats into the attic. Sometimes the feces or urine can leak through the drywall and onto your ceiling. I have seen that many times. Each bat poops 20-30 times per day (they eat a lot!) and you can do the math. 25 fecal pellets x 365 days = over 9000 bat poops per year per bat. If you have a large colony, the droppings can accumulate. I have personally been inside attics which were loaded with feces over two feet deep throughout the attic, causing the ceilings to cave in. The odor of a colony of bats and their guano can be very strong, and in accumulation, the guano can be a health risk - a place for mold to grow, and can cause potential respiratory infections. For these reasons, many people want to remove the bats in the attic before the problem gets out of hand. Be sure not to touch or even disturb bat feces in an attic. It is often a good idea to clean it up, with a full attic restoration.

As for how to identify bat feces (or droppings, poop, scat, turds, latrine, whatever you want to call it), look at the below photographs. The feces are small brown poops, about 1/4 inch in length on average, cylindrical, with semi-rounded ends and are usually pretty much dark brown or dary gray, but they can almost glisten in light, because of the high amount of insect exoskeletons in the feces. They are usually scattered or piled below roosting areas, and sometimes the droppings number in the millions. They often become more of a solid mass with age.

How do I clean bat feces out of my attic? If you have had bats in your home, then you know that they will leave their droppings anywhere. Most think of this as an inconvenience, like if a mouse were in your home popping as it moved around, but the truth is that bat feces is much more dangerous. When touched the feces immediately breaks apart and becomes airborne. Bat feces do contain a lot of insect parts. Read about: How many bugs can a bat eat each night? The material contains several illnesses and diseases that are quite hazardous to you, and so it is imperative that you are quite careful and thorough when you are cleaning.

The first order of business before you do anything to tackle this cleanup is to make sure that you are thoroughly protected. You will want to cover all exposed areas of your skin, including wearing thick gloves whenever you are around the material. You will also want to wear goggles and a surgical mask to protect your eyes and respiratory tract. There are several respiratory ailments that bats carry that can easily enter your system when you breathe in. This means you need to protect your airways.

Once you have properly attired yourself, you will want to mix a solution of ammonia and hydrogen peroxide in water. Normally, with most feces it would be best to vacuum up the material, but since this so easily turns to powder and spreads, this is not safe, because your vacuum will disperse this over a larger area, contaminating your whole house. This is not a good idea at all. Don't forget to clean the mold properly as well. Read about mold in the attic that can come from feces.

The best course of action is to dampen the feces and then clean it up that way. This will keep in from spreading. For many, what they do is to simply get a spray bottle like you would use to spray your plants, and lightly spray the feces so it becomes moist. When it is it will not break apart as easily and this will make it easy for you to cleanup in a much safer way.

Use a paper towel and wipe up the material and put it in a trash bag right away that you will dispose of immediately after you are done with the cleanup.

Next, get a scrubbing pad and use your ammonia solution to clean the affected area. To be safe you should scrub this at least three or four times to make sure that the wood is cleaned and disease free. All insulation affected by the bat feces must be disposed of and replaced.

To identify the bat feces in your attic, the best bet is to look at the volume of droppings. The odor is actually the most obvious giveaway. It is very distinct - I can identify it when driving in a car for example, but if you're not familiar with it, that won't help you. How to get rid of bat droppings in the attic - the best approach is a full cleanup, with either vacuuming of feces or insulation removal, and fogging of the attic with a special enzyme cleaner. But if your attic isn't too dirty, you may want to skip this expensive step. If you just have some poop in your attic and want to know which animal caused the poop, look at the above images of bat droppings, and you should be able to identify if bats are the culprit.