Keeping bats at the Urban Homestead

I may have just officially been declared crazy with this post, but im the type of guy that likes to look at all kinds of options. I live in a place where the keepers of the Forest aka "mosquito's" frequently get drunk off of my families and pets blood every day. As soon as I walk outside the vampires follow my trail and instantly are all over me. I have tried everything. We are obsessive about not leaving any standing water around. But the vampires keep on coming. We finally found out why we have so many mosquito's. My neighbors have a small pond that they breed in and because of that it is out of our hands. Or is it?


This is where my little hairy Friends come in. I was doing some reading on the benefits of bats and came up with the brilliant idea that, If I kept bats at my property I could put a dent in the Mosquito population. Maybe my thinking is like throwing gallons of gasoline on the campfire to get it going. I don't know. But there is one thing for sure, one bat can eat up to 1000 mosquito's a night. That's 1000 mosquito's per bat every night. So it's either harmful pesticides or hairy little bats. I'm leaning towards the bats. I really can't talk my wife into this one. I will just have to tell her that 80s' style hairdos are out. No big hair.

On keeping the little guys, the only thing that is needed is a bat box to hang on a near by tree for the nocturnal guys to live in. The information that I read also stated that it may take up to 3 years for bats to occupy the new residents, but once they do they will be back year after year. Bat boxes are sold on ebay in all shapes and sizes and I think this fall I will purchase one and give it go. What about rabies? It's the hype of movies and media hysteria about bats that give them the bad wrap. According to the Bat conservation website they state, 'That Bats can get the rabies virus, but the incidence of bats and rabies is very low, usually only about one half of one percent of bats tested, test positive for the virus. If you take into consideration that people have a much higher chance of getting attacked by a dog, falling down a flight of stairs, or being struck by lightning and dying than dying of a bat bite you can see that rabies is rare."