A Bat in the House: Exposure Comes Before Capture

Could anyone have been exposed to this bat?

Answer this before anything else, while the bat is still in the room. This site passes on Ohio wildlife removal referrals, and that call comes after the one about health.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says, in its own words:

• “While certain bats are more commonly diagnosed with rabies, all bat species are susceptible and any direct contact with a bat should be reported to a medical provider or your public health department.”
• “If you’ve been exposed to an animal that might have rabies, contact your health department immediately.”
• “If you may have been exposed to rabies, you should urgently seek medical attention.”

CDC gives the reason the check comes first: “Contact with infected bats is the leading cause of human rabies deaths in this country.”

Two Ohio health departments name the cases that are easy to miss. Their pages are restated here, not quoted:

• The Cincinnati Health Department says that when a bat gets into a home and someone in the household has had contact with it, even if nobody is sure of a bite or a scratch, or when a person wakes to find a bat in their room, the bat should be caught and euthanized so that a lab can test it for rabies.
• The Cuyahoga County Board of Health counts each of these as a possible rabies exposure without a bite: a person waking to find a bat in the bedroom, a bat found in a room where a child was unattended, and a person having direct physical contact with a bat.

If any of these fits, or you cannot rule one out, call your local health department.

Each department writes its own list. The one that covers your address is the one that counts.

Why should the bat stay in the room until you have called?

A bat that has gone cannot be tested. The Cincinnati Health Department explains that only a laboratory test can confirm rabies, so it advises a person who finds a bat to keep it safely contained and contact the local health department. It adds that if the bat cannot be tested, treatment after the encounter may be advised.

Do these in order:

1. Leave the bat alone, in the room it is in, with that room’s doors and windows closed.
2. Decide whether anyone could have been exposed, using the section above.
3. Call your local health department. Say where the bat is and who was in the room.
4. Have the bat captured so it can be tested, if the health department asks for that.

Two county health departments give this sequence for the case where exposure is uncertain. Summit County Public Health tells residents not to disturb the bat, to bring in a nuisance animal trapper, and then to contact the department about testing. The Toledo-Lucas County Health Department’s 2023 brochure says that a person who does not know whether they were exposed should close the windows and doors, leave the bat in the room, have a professional capture it, and call the health department to arrange rabies testing.

Which health department do you call?

Your own. The department that covers your address is the one whose instructions apply, and the line between two departments can be a city limit.

Two examples from the departments’ own pages. The Cincinnati Health Department arranges bat testing for possible exposures inside the Cincinnati city limits and sends people with bats collected outside them to Hamilton County Public Health. The Cleveland Department of Public Health is the health agency for the City of Cleveland, while the Cuyahoga County Board of Health covers the rest of Cuyahoga County.

The list of local health departments shows the ones this site has read, with the number each one publishes and what it says about a bat in the house. If yours is not listed, the number is on your city or county health department’s own website.

That call is about exposure and testing. Capturing the bat is a second call, covered next.

Who catches a bat inside an Ohio home?

Not always the health department. Two Ohio health departments say so on their own pages:

• Summit County Public Health, the health department for Akron and the rest of Summit County, says it cannot help capture a bat. When exposure is possible it points residents to a nuisance animal trapper and asks them to contact the department about testing.
• The Cincinnati Health Department does not accept a live bat and does not euthanize bats. It tells residents to have a private company retrieve the bat, and it arranges testing by phone.

The Toledo-Lucas County Health Department’s brochure also tells residents to have a professional capture the bat.

In those places capture falls to a private operator. Ohio Attic Animal Removal is a referral service run by Local Core Group. It has no field staff and captures nothing itself. When you call the number on this page, your request is passed to an independent wildlife operator when one works at your address. Whether one is available is settled on the call. The operator sets the price and answers for its own license and insurance.

State rules apply to how a bat is captured and handled, and the operator who takes the job answers for them. What happens to the bat for testing is settled between the operator and your health department, so ask both.

This page does not describe catching a bat yourself. County instructions differ, and the department you call is the one to give them.

Is it ever right to open a window and let the bat go?

Only after the exposure question is answered, and only where your own health department’s instructions allow it. Once the bat is gone, it cannot be tested.

One Ohio county health department publishes a release step. Summit County Public Health says that a resident who is sure no person and no pet was exposed can shut the bat in one room, close the doors and windows that lead into the rest of the house, and leave the ones to the outside open so the bat can let itself out.

That step is Summit County’s, and it applies only when exposure has been ruled out. For the case where you do not know, Summit County and Toledo-Lucas County say the same thing: the bat stays where it is, it gets captured, and you call about testing.

If you live somewhere else, your own health department’s answer is the one to follow. Call it before the bat leaves the room.

If nobody can say whether a sleeping person, a child or a pet was in the room with the bat, exposure has not been ruled out. Do not let the bat go.

Do bats live in Ohio houses all year?

Some bats use buildings. Ohio State University Extension wrote in 2016 that two of Ohio’s bat species commonly share living space with people: the big brown bat and the little brown bat.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says of the little brown bat, across its whole range: “Maternity colonies commonly are in warm sites in buildings, like attics, bat houses, other human structures, and infrequently, in hollow trees.”

The calendar, from an Ohio State University Extension article (2016) and Extension slides (2022):

• March through September: Ohio bats are active.
• May and June: bats of every species give birth.
• July and August: pups are foraging.
• October through March: bats migrate and hibernate.

A single bat in a room does not tell you whether more are living in the building. It is a reason to have the house looked at once the bat in the room is dealt with.

What happens after the bat is out?

Two things are still open: how the bat got into the living space, and whether others are roosting in the building.

If the health department asked for the bat, follow its instructions for testing and wait for its call about the result.

For the building, an operator inspects and explains the plan on the call. Bats roosting in the building are covered on the bat removal page.

State rules apply to when and how bats are put out of a building. The operator who takes the job answers for them.