No More Bats in Our Belfry!!

I had written some blogs a few weeks back about 20 or so bats that were in our attic!  

Batty Bat Bats! Plus Weaving and Apple Pies

ONE Batty Bat - TWO Batty Bats - THREE Batty Bats!

We needed to get the bats out before our new attic insulation was due to be blown in for the winter heating seasion. 

Good news! The Bat Specialists Company, Ryan "The Bat Man", came back for one last check. http://batspecialistsofwi.com/index.html  He has determined that yes, all of the bats are GONE. Not only that, he got us adequately sealed up against any further intrusion because the one single bat that we thought was still up there is now DEAD. That means it never found it's way out and didn't have anything to eat.  

Ryan and his partner Adam came back here multiple times until they were sure the bats were gone. They will continue to check on us for one year per contract. 

 (they don't kill the bats, they install one way doors that let them out and not back in again, and seal up any openings they find all over the entire house).

So that means 

we don't have any more 

bats in our belfry!

Ryan's next suggestion was to seal the surfaces of any areas of the exposed wood on the rafters, eaves and studs where the bats had been clinging to. There is evidence of bat urine and guano (bat poop) that is remaining on the surface of the wood. He said by sealing that off, it would deter any future bats to be attracted back to the attic by the lingering scent.

He suggested that we pick up a product that is a primer/paint that kills odor-causing bacteria. It's also used for killing mold mildew and is a primer that could be sprayed on to seal the wood.

He also suggested that we remove all of the new layers of batt insulation we just put up there this spring, on the south section of the home. There's not a lot of that guano on it, but he said every bit that you can remove now will help deter any re-infestation.

The third thing he suggested is that we upgrade the standard roof vents that are up there, which the screens had failed and allowed the bats entrance and exit every night. In the meantime, Steve added a new layer of screening and stapled it into place, and caulked around all of the edges too.  Ryan said to replace the vents with a better designed roof vent that is more bat proof. We are contacting the roofing company that did the original installation a few years ago to see what's covered under warranty and if we upgrade, if would they install them? 

So ----  bright and early this morning at 5:15 a.m., Steve and I filled our bleary heads with coffee.  Oh my, we don't get up this early anymore since retirement.   We headed down to Home Depot in Green Bay to rent the big airless paint sprayer. None of our local hardware stores had one that was functioning. How well do I know that? I used to work at one of the local hardware stores. I'm the person that had to clean up the sprayer every time somebody returned it all full of gunk and paint and crap.

Home Depot charges $76 for the 4 hour rental, $11.40 for damage insurance and also charges you an extra $150 deposit to make sure that you clean it up afterwards! 

We got the paint sprayer through the rental department which is a little side door and a single counter with plexiglass. So at 6 am, we were relatively safe from being around any other shoppers by picking it up. We had the curbside pickup for the large 5 gallon bucket of the Zinsser bacteria and mold killing primer.  That was an extra $135.00 for the paint/primer. 

(note -we aren't really killing mold, this stuff works to seal the residue from the bats)

We loaded the paint sprayer in the back of the Saturn, and we were sure to bring along extra plastic tarps in case anything dribbled onto the carpeting in the back of our vehicle.

We got home by 6:45 am and while Steve got out the big ladder and carried the paint bucket, I covered some of the floor of our porch with cardboard as well as a plastic tarp. We had already pre-gathered the supplies and materials to get a good organized start.  My sexy Steve donned his industrial n95 respirator mask as well as put on his old glasses instead of his newest ones. He put on his sexy brown painting overalls and got on up the ladder to get started.

The air hose was plenty long to reach up from the porch into the attic via the entrance window.  Steve could work up there and not have to haul the big machine or the 5 gallon bucket up the ladder. 

I was the "down below person" who manned the pump, controlled the pressure, and let him know how the level in the bucket was progressing. It is kind of a one-man job up there at the spraying end of the machine, but at least I feel like I am helping from down below.

We only had about three hours to get this done, because the rental time span is 4 hours. That includes our half hour each way for traveling to Green Bay, so we had to get this done quickly.

As I type this blog, he is up there spraying away. He said everything is going good and he is able to reach all of the areas that need to be covered.  I did a cell phone camera zoom picture from standing on the ground.

On one of Steve's breaks, he took the cell phone up there to take photos of what he was doing. This had been all dark brown raw unfinished wood with streaks of bat doo doo on it. what a difference!

Here comes my sexy painting guy,

at the end of the job,

(minus his mask). 

I think my guy 

went prematurely gray

awfully fast?

We got the entire 5 gallon bucket done and sprayed by 9:30 AM. We now needed to get the whole thing cleaned up spic and span to be sure we were not going to be charged a cleaning fee once we brought it back!

Actually, we scrubbed and cleaned it so well that we cleaned up old paint and residue from other people who rented it before we did. Steve also cleaned out the filter and made sure everything was up to snuff before loading it back into the Saturn.

The guys in the tool rental department, Dennis, Mike and Dale, were very nice and chatted for a bit over the condition of the sprayer nozzle and talked about the process. Actually, Steve had worked with Dennis for many years at the University of Wisconsin Green Bay. They will all get good customer reviews from us online at Home Depot customer service department. 

~~~~~

Once this prep work is all done, next week the insulation contractors are coming. We had originally hired them to just remove all of the small styrofoam bead ball type insulation on the North section of the house attic, because we felt we were sufficiently covered on the South section with our newly rolled out batts that we put there this spring.

They will be coming with a huge dumpster and a vacuum device that will remove all of the crazy Styrofoam ball insulation. Just think of stuff like the inside of a bean bag chair! That is what had been put up there previously on the North half of the house, when there were renters in the home. They qualified for a State NewCap Weatherization program for free insulation. That is the cheapest stuff that was used and it was just dumped all over in the north half of the attic from big bags. So the whole North section of our house is loose styrofoam balls---- AND bat doo doo! So this company is going to suck it all out and then blow in new proper insulation to an R50 depth.

At our original time of contracting with the insulation company, they were only going to do the north side of the house. The South side was already rolled out with our batt insulation that we added in the spring.  That is now covered with bat doo-doo too!  It's gotta go.  Steve rolled it all up prior to the painting and the insulation company is going to dispose of it for us too.

But now, with the recommendation of the Bat Man, all the bat residue is contained, and we will have the entire attic insulated up to R50. It will cost us more, of course, but then it will all be done correctly.

When we called them back to say we will need more insulation, they were more than happy to comply! LOL 

Oh my, our poor retirement budget is getting stretched this month.