Do mothballs help repel bats?

If you have bats in your home, you are probably wanting to do anything and everything that you can to try to get rid of them. Bats are horrific creatures that carry large numbers of parasites and diseases that can be quite dangerous to you, your family, and your pets. You want to make sure that they are not by your home and that they continue to stay far away, so using all means at your disposal becomes a key.



The Mothball Option

One thing that many have tried to keep these creatures away or to scare them away is the use of mothballs. Mothballs are the little spherical objects that are used to keep moths away from your clothes when you store them. Moths love to chew at clothing like wool, and they can ruin clothes that you have put in your attic or closet. The mothballs are quite effective at keeping them away.

The question is if they are equally as useful in keeping a bat away. The logic behind the idea seems to make sense. The chemicals that are contained inside the mothballs have a dramatic effect on moths so it would seem that those same repellents could have an equal effect on something like a bat.

The truth of the matter is that they can act as a mild deterrent against a bat. Bats are sensitive to the chemicals that are inside the mothballs and so they will react negatively to them being placed in a location where the bats are known to congregate. However, that is not the full story.

Putting mothballs in your clothing works perfectly well because moths are trying to find a location to set up a home of their own. Your clothing asked the perfect location because it provides them with food and shelter. Putting the mothballs directly in the clothing is going to have great success.

However, consider your attic for a moment. If you are like most homeowners you have a rather large area that constitutes your attic. If you placed a few mothballs in one part of your home a bat will simply fly away from there and move towards another spot. This will make your attempt to keep them away useless.

You may say to yourself that you would just place more mothballs in the attic area to try to keep them from coming back or to get them to go away. So how many are you willing to place inside your attic to try to read the bats from returning? You would likely need hundreds, if not thousands of these laid all over the floor of your attic and attached to the ceiling area as well.

Consider that bats don’t sit on the ground. They hang from the ceiling and sleep. So, how are you to get the mothballs attached to your ceiling to keep them away? It really is not a plausible option if you get down to it.

There Are Better Options

If you are looking to rid your home or bats, then mothballs are not the answer at all. It simply isn’t cost effective or even plausible that you try to use them. You are much better off looking at using something like a one-way exclusion funnel or even hiring someone to come out and trap and remove the bats.

For those who don’t want to pay the cost of an exterminator, consider that thousands of moth balls would cost you just as much. If you would spend on the one when it would not work at all, then you might as well spend on the other when you know you will get the results you desire. NEED LOCAL HELP? We have wildlife removal professionals servicing 95% of the USA. Click here to hire a local bat removal expert in your home town. Updated 2018. It's best to be educated on the subject, so browse this site and especially read the bats in the attic home page, or email me if you have any more questions about Do mothballs help repel bats?



Wildlife Education - Information and Advice for the Safe Removal of Bats from Attics