As pest controllers we have to be very aware of bats.   In the UK we have 14 species of bat, all of which can be found in the Kent area.  Bats in literature and film are often portrayed as evil and the vampire myth has given them a bad press.   In fact, bats pose no risk to humans, are not blind, and do not get tangled up in hair.

Bats are protected under the wildlife and countryside act 1981 and should you kill a bat you could be liable to a £5,000 fine (per bat killed) or six months imprisonment.

As pest controllers, when we go into lofts to treat for a variety of pests we must determine if bats are present.  The most obvious sign of the presence of bats is their droppings.  Mouse and bat droppings appear similar to the untrained eye but the easiest way to distinguish between them is to crush them between your (gloved) fingers. Mouse droppings will smear while bat droppings will crumble into dust and contain fragments of insects.

In April, bats are becoming more active, having emerged from hibernation in March, and we start getting calls for noises in attics.  So far this year we have found two ‘mouse jobs’ that have proved to be bats.  In both instances the householders were pleased to have bats in their property and even more pleased they didn’t have to pay Arrowguard for treatments. 

One interesting call we received was for insects coming out of the base of a first floor chimney upon investigation.  It was found to be insect fragments coming down a disused chimney.

“Have you ever had bats in the property?” we asked.  “Yes – in our loft” was the reply.

“Well, they have now also moved into the chimney”, we advised.

The problem had been solved but a cleanup of the insect fragments still needed to be dealt with because bats don’t use napkins!
 

We were called to a country house this week, where they had a problem with beetles. The beetles were identified as biscuit beetle (Stegobium Paniceum) and there were hundreds of them.

It is important in a property to correctly identify the species of beetle because biscuit beetle can easily be confused with common furniture beetle (woodworm). Misidentification can lead to incorrect treatments being carried out and infestation being prolonged.

The biscuit beetles were heavily present mainly in a toilet area, emerging from a box void below the sink.  Scratching my head I wondered what the food source was.

Asking the householder, she queried if biscuit beetle could live on mouse corpses because she had a problem with mice some months ago that she successfully treated herself.

“What did the mice eat?” I asked.

“Oh they got through half a bag of dog biscuits over a weekend”, she replied.

Food source solved: the mice had carried a large quantity of dog biscuits into the toilet void, which had been left untouched since the mice had been exterminated. Clearly, the beetles were feeding off these biscuits over a period of time.

The ideal solution to the problem would be to remove the food source, but as this would involve removing tiles and other building work, we drilled some small holes in the front of the void and placed insecticide dust in the void itself.  As an addition to finalise the problem, the air bricks around the house to prevent the mice re-entering. 

This goes to show that what can initially appear to be puzzling can be answered by finding out more about the history of pests within a property.