CritterChatter™ Blog
Bats Infest Longmont Senior Housing Complex
Elderly Residents Call Infestation 'Scary'
An estimated 600 to 800 brown bats have infested the Village Place apartment complex in Longmont.
“It’s scary,” said Marthalee Walker, one of the tenants who resides in the senior housing community. “We’ve had bats in the hallway and in the lobby, and some people have had bats in their apartments.”
Walker told 7NEWS that one of her neighbors fell and broke a tooth trying to get away from the bats.
Another resident, Mary Lynne Myers, said there have been bats in the building every summer for four years, but this summer is the worst.
“I’m in a wheelchair,” Myers said. “But when I see them, I go as fast as I can to my apartment and shut the door.”
Myers said that when she and several friends tried to eat in the dining room last week, the bats kept diving for their food.
“They were hungry,” she said.
Michael Reis, executive director of the Longmont Housing Authority said the authority has been working hard to get rid of the bats.
He said they’ve contracted with Critter Control to remove the bats.
An expert at Critter Control said there are a large number of bats in the Longmont area feeding on mosquitoes and other insects.
The company spokesman said the bats like to attach themselves to brick buildings then crawl around until they find a place to enter.
The spokesman said the best way to deal with bats is to extrude them, or expel them.
He said there is no need to poison the bats.
“We don’t want them to die and start decomposing in the building,” the spokesman said.
Reis said the housing authority has spent $6,000 to get rid of the bats.
He said most of that money has been used to seal up small cracks, install screens on air conditioners and vents, and to place one-way exit tubes along the exterior wall so the bats can get out at night during feeding time, but can’t get back in.
When asked if the measures were working, Reis replied, “Well, for the last three nights we’ve been down to zero. Maybe it’s too soon to tell, but we’re happy that it’s gone down to zero.” Reis said management counted 80 bats inside the building last Thursday.
“So that’s progress,” he said.
Residents said they still see some of the nocturnal creatures flying outside the building but pest-control experts believe they’ve solved the problem inside.
Walker told 7NEWS that management used sticky flypaper to catch some of the bats and turned them over to the health department.
She said none of the bats have tested positive for rabies.
Although she’s grateful for that, Walker said she still wants them gone.
“They seem to fly willy-nilly around,” she said. “So everybody’s been ducking, trying to get out of their way.”
Credits: By Lance Hernandez - TheDenverChannel.com
