My parents have bats in their airing cupboard

sarahandme

Apologies in advance if I'm posting in the wrong section, but my parents, especially my poor mum who is 86 had a shock the other night, when she opened her airing cupboard, only to find a bat clinging to her night gown.
My dad managed to get it in a bucket and take it outside and it flew off. 
Then they asked me and hubby to come over the next day to check the airing cupboard again as mum was too scared to even enter the bathroom, luckily their toilet is not in the bathroom, so we emptied all the clothes from the cupboard, and we found 6 baby bats on some of the clothes, put them all in a bucket and took them outside to a near by field and let them out there, not sure if they can fly or not.
Went back there today, baring in mind mum is still petrified about entering the bathroom, so we did and found 3 more,  2 in the airing cupboard, and one actually in the bathroom hiding behind the sink unit on the floor. 
So we don't actually know how they got into the house, or how they go from airing cuoboard to bathroom as we kept the cupboard door shut. But one found its way behind the sink which has baffled us. Could they be nesting under the floor boards in the bathroom? We originally assumed they got in throw a slight gap between the bathrooms flat roof and corner of the house, so we filled that up with cement yesterday at the request of my dad.
What else can we do? Mum is still too scared to use her bathroom bless her.
I suggested to dad why don't we ring some kind of pest control company, but he refused that idea, he said even they wouldn't know where they are getting in. 
Or would they have a better understanding of it?

donnac2558

Bats are protected.   Phone the council and asked their advice.

babyblade41

as above , bats are protected and should not be removed without specialist help. You need to phone the relevant dept and they will have a look but don't remove them 

Robin9

Your local bat group will be very interested (excited)
www.bats.org.uk/support-bats/bat-groups

KxMx

As a protected species pest control isn't appropriate for bats, but having to have a pest controller myself recently (mice), it's absolutely not necessary to know where they are coming in, PCs are experts who can see signs invisible to us and have experience on where to look, where pests usually and can enter etc
 

sarahandme

Thanks. I followed your advice and rang the council. But they said they won't send anyone round until the 4th of July. God knows why?
We told them poor mum is petrified and affectively cant use her bathroom but they didnt seem too bothered about that?
I wonder what they would do if it was their elderly mother who now is too afraid to use her own bathroom facilities?
Apparently online you can buy a device you plug in and it sends out high pitch sounds which makes them fly out again. Not sure how affective they are. 
Thanks for your help. 

Ditzy_Mitzy

I desperately hope the mother bat was able to find her babies.  Do you know if she was released close to where you put the babies?  And did the babies take flight when released?  Correct procedure is to report to the police non-emergency line and the National Bat Helpline: https://www.bats.org.uk/our-work/national-bat-helpline  - the helpline may still be able to offer advice. 
Otherwise, with the bats gone, empty everything out of cupboards in the bathroom and have a good old clean and tidy.  

Barny1979

sarahandme said:

Thanks. I followed your advice and rang the council. But they said they won't send anyone round until the 4th of July. God knows why?
We told them poor mum is petrified and affectively cant use her bathroom but they didnt seem too bothered about that?
I wonder what they would do if it was their elderly mother who now is too afraid to use her own bathroom facilities?
Apparently online you can buy a device you plug in and it sends out high pitch sounds which makes them fly out again. Not sure how affective they are. 
Thanks for your help. 

Local Authorities have enough to deal with currently and it might be that staff are working on other areas of support until 4th July.

sarahandme

Ditzy_Mitzy said:

I desperately hope the mother bat was able to find her babies.  Do you know if she was released close to where you put the babies?  And did the babies take flight when released?  Correct procedure is to report to the police non-emergency line and the National Bat Helpline the helpline may still be able to offer advice. 
Otherwise, with the bats gone, empty everything out of cupboards in the bathroom and have a good old clean and tidy.  

To be perfectly honest,  we dont know because one flew off which we assumed to be the mother towards where we put the babies but we didnt hang around there long enough to see if the babies took flight. We we're more worried about poor mum because its visably worried her up badly which can kill an eldely lady with fright. Shes petrified of bats, so out of desperation we had to remove them from the bathroom to put her mind at rest, or try to, but I think there are still more hiding somewhere. 
What is frustrating is no one will come out until 4th of July.  What do we do in the mean time? You cant just decommission a bathroom. I really feel for poor mum I really do. 

sarahandme

Barny1979 said:

sarahandme said:

Thanks. I followed your advice and rang the council. But they said they won't send anyone round until the 4th of July. God knows why?
We told them poor mum is petrified and affectively cant use her bathroom but they didnt seem too bothered about that?
I wonder what they would do if it was their elderly mother who now is too afraid to use her own bathroom facilities?
Apparently online you can buy a device you plug in and it sends out high pitch sounds which makes them fly out again. Not sure how affective they are. 
Thanks for your help. 

Local Authorities have enough to deal with currently and it might be that staff are working on other areas of support until 4th July.

Could be, but coincidentally isn't that the date hairdressers and pubs can re-open? I wonder if its connected to that.
Our problem is how can we decommission mums bathroom for all that time?
What do we do with anymore we might find? 

Ditzy_Mitzy

sarahandme said:

Ditzy_Mitzy said:

I desperately hope the mother bat was able to find her babies.  Do you know if she was released close to where you put the babies?  And did the babies take flight when released?  Correct procedure is to report to the police non-emergency line and the National Bat Helpline the helpline may still be able to offer advice. 
Otherwise, with the bats gone, empty everything out of cupboards in the bathroom and have a good old clean and tidy.  

To be perfectly honest,  we dont know because one flew off which we assumed to be the mother towards where we put the babies but we didnt hang around there long enough to see if the babies took flight. We we're more worried about poor mum because its visably worried her up badly which can kill an eldely lady with fright. Shes petrified of bats, so out of desperation we had to remove them from the bathroom to put her mind at rest, or try to, but I think there are still more hiding somewhere. 
What is frustrating is no one will come out until 4th of July.  What do we do in the mean time? You cant just decommission a bathroom. I really feel for poor mum I really do. 

I believe the kindest thing to do with baby bats is to handle them gently and wrap them in soft towels, so they can't unfurl their wings and thrash about, and to try and keep them warm.  A vet might take them, as some practices do take in protected or endangered species.  Otherwise there's the Bat Helpline, who should be able to advise far better than anyone here, or the RSPCA.  
As for the house: go round, open all the cupboards, turn everything out, check behind curtains etc.  There might be bats, in which case you need to deal with them accordingly, or not, allowing you to rest easy in the knowledge the bats have gone.