ER Wildlife Control's Rusty Johnson dons a gas mask Thursday before climbing into the attic of the Tift County Commission on Children and Youth to hunt for bats.

Sandra Wright had been at her job as executive director of the Tift County Commission on Children and Youth for a couple of weeks when she noticed something on the floor in front of the closet, just a few feet away from her desk.

“It was a bat lying there,” she said. “It had flattened out, but it was still alive.”

The office for the TCCCY is on Ridge Avenue, located in one of the big, historic homes prevalent in that area. The TCCCY rents the building from the Tift County Recreation Department. Wright called the maintenance men at the rec department and they came over and removed the bat.

The next bat she found dead in the kitchen sink, and the next one was found dead in the commode.

Like most people who live and work in the historic district, Wright realized she had a bat problem.

“I thought it was a serious health issue,” Wright said.

Wright was right.

Disease organisms are commonly found in bat excrement and can result in cryptococcosis or histoplasmosis, both potentially fatal diseases. Cryptococcosis can result in an infection that can spread to the central nervous system, bringing about an inflammation to the brain and spinal cord that is difficult to diagnosis and can be fatal if not properly and promptly treated. Histoplasmosis produces a mild influenza -like illness, but pneumonia, blindness and even death can result from a chronic infection.

It was time for Wright to call Tifton’s Bat Men: Rusty Johnson and Earl Thompson.

When they entered the attic at the TCCCY, they found hundreds of bats hanging on the walls and bat droppings on the attic floor piled inches deep.

The process to remove the bats is a lengthy one.

“First, we go in and seal up all the cracks and holes in the house,” Johnson said. “We use a foam that is made for bat control.”

Thompson adds, “A crack as small as three-eighths of an inch by one inch, the bats can slither through it.”

“We leave two or three holes for the bats to exit from and put one-way valves or excluders on them, so the bats can go out but can’t get back in,” Johnson said. “It takes five to seven days for them to all leave. Usually they will hang around the outside of the house for a while before relocating.”

When the bats have exited, Johnson and Thompson inspect the area to make sure they are all out, take off the excluders and seal the remaining cracks or holes.

Removing the bat droppings is another process.

“We have a super-duper bat doo-doo scooper,” Thompson said.

“It’s a real big vacuum,” Johnson said.

After the droppings are removed, they spray with disinfectant and deodorize the area.

The bat men said most people try to remove the bats by using moth balls or a sonic frequency.

“They are zero percent effective,” Johnson said.

“One lady had her pantyhose full of mothballs hung in the attic,” Thompson said.

“Don’t tell about that,” Johnson said.

The bat men said bats do not just roost in older, historic homes.

“We’ve seen new homes, just four or five years old, with bats,” Johnson said. “We’ve even seen bats roost under houses.”

The bat men agreed that squirrels are a number-one problem with bats.

“The squirrels eat a hole and the bats go through,” Thompson said.

Bats cannot be removed from a building between May 1 and Aug. 15 without a special permit.

“That’s when they are raising their babies,” Johnson said. “We have to apply for a special permit from DNR to remove bats during that time, and then they will only approve it if the bats are in the house.”

The bat men said that the best way to tell if you have a bat problem is to go outside at dusk and see if any bats fly out of your house. They advise that homeowners insurance policies will usually pay for the bat dropping removal, although not for the removal of the bats.

Bats are protected by state and federal law and provide a valuable service: One bat can eat 1,200 mosquitoes an hour.

“One man built four bat houses on the side of his house,” Johnson said. “He wanted the bats to eat the bugs.”

“A bit of advice,” Thompson added. “If you build bat houses, put them far away from your house.”

The bat men are licensed by the state to remove bats and have both a Georgia Nuisance License and a Georgia Trappers License. Thompson is the president of the Georgia Trappers Association and Johnson is the Georgia representative for the National Trappers Association.

Their business, which is called ER Wildlife Control, began when friends and acquaintances would call on them to trap nuisance animals.

“We decided to make a business out of it,” Johnson said. “We work from Macon south.”

They do not just remove bats. They also remove squirrels, beavers, coyotes, opossums, raccoons, armadillos, wharf rats, snakes and skunks.

They see squirrels as a big problem because they chew on electrical wires and insulation. “They are a fire hazard,” Johnson said.

The bat men told the story of the man who had 13 skunks under his house.

“It was in late February and it was the mating season,” Johnson said.

“Yeah, and he was hollering, ‘Help me, help me,’” Thompson said.

The bat men said the worst time they ever had was with the removal of a dead possum. “The man had been away on vacation for a week and came home to a terrible smell,” Johnson said. “The crawl space was real low and we had to dig and dig to be able to get to the possum.”

The bat men said they work by the rule: If the creature is non-poisonous, it is removed; if it is poisonous, it is euthanized.

Asked how they euthanize the poisonous creatures, Thompson said, “With a .22.”



To contact reporter Jana Cone, call 382-4321, ext. 208.