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Found a Bat Inside Your Lafayette Home? Do This First

Checked against Louisiana Office of Public Health, LDWF and CDC guidance on November 7, 2026. How we research this site.

Shut the door on it, keep everyone out, and do not let it go yet. Whether that bat needs testing depends on who was in the room, and that question comes before anything about the attic.

Tonight, in order

1. Close the room. Keep children and pets out. Do not swat at the bat or grab it.
2. Ask who was in there. Someone asleep, a small child, or anyone who may have touched it changes everything. CDC notes that bat bites can be tiny enough that you never know you were bitten.
3. Call public health if the answer is yes. The Louisiana Office of Public Health’s Infectious Disease Epidemiology Section answers 800-256-2748 at any hour. Call your doctor as well.
4. Catch it only if you are told to. CDC’s method: leather work gloves, a box or jar big enough for the bat, wait for it to land, cover it, slide a piece of cardboard underneath and tape it shut.

Why Louisiana takes the bedroom bat seriously

The Department of Health’s 2023 rabies report counts 150 rabid animals reported in Louisiana from 2000 to 2023, and 80 of them were bats. Eleven bat species have been identified in the state, and the report says each carries at least one distinct variant of the virus. It also points out that Louisiana does no active surveillance of wildlife rabies, so those reported figures do not show the full picture. The Office of Public Health’s bat guidance is blunt: bats in living areas, especially where people sleep, can be extremely dangerous.

When the bats are living in the house

One bat in the hallway often means a roost somewhere in the attic, the walls or around the chimney. That is a building problem with tight legal limits. Under Louisiana’s rules for permitted operators, bats may be excluded, or captured and relocated, and lethal control is prohibited. The Office of Public Health adds that pesticides against bats are illegal, and calls exclusion the only effective permanent fix, since relocated bats home back even from long distances.

What a proper exclusion involves

The Office of Public Health describes the method step by step. First, every crack, plumbing hole and electrical gap that bats are not using gets filled, with steel wool, caulk, weather-stripping, flashing or screening, and it suggests caulking early in the day so it is dry by evening. Openings between the attic and the living space are part of that work. Then one-way excluders go over the gaps the bats do use, so they can leave at dusk and cannot return. Those stay up for a minimum of five to seven days, and longer in bad weather. The department says simply waiting for the bats to fly out and sealing up behind them is not appropriate, because they do not all leave together and some stay in all night. Chimney roosts need their own setup and a cap afterwards.

What does not work

Ultrasonic devices and mothballs are both sold as bat repellents. The Office of Public Health says ultrasonic units are ineffective, and that naphthalene, the active ingredient in mothballs, only works in quantities large enough to be a real health hazard to the people in the house.

Timing

Louisiana does not publish bat maternity dates. LDWF does warn against removing animals in spring and early summer, the breeding season for most wildlife, because young left in an attic die there. With bats, pups that cannot yet fly cannot use an excluder, so an exclusion at the wrong moment can seal them inside. That ends as a smell in the ceiling, covered on our dead animal pickup page.

Guano in the attic

Dried bat droppings are a breeding ground for histoplasmosis, a fungal infection caught by breathing in spores when the droppings are disturbed. The Office of Public Health’s precautions for anyone who has to go near it: dampen the area with a fine water mist first, wear disposable gloves and clothing, and use a mask that filters very small particles. Where guano has built up heavily, it recommends a company that does bat work. If the space is sealed off and the air system does not draw from it, it says residents are generally not exposed.

Who does bat work here

LDWF’s operator list can be filtered to bats and to Lafayette Parish. The Office of Public Health also keeps a list of companies that have told it they do bat control in Louisiana, with a clear note that it does not license or regulate them, that a listing is not an endorsement, and that you should get at least two quotes. We do not publish a price, because the number of entry points on the roof and the amount of guano drive the cost, and both need someone on site to judge. For local roost patterns, see bat removal in Lafayette.

Questions people ask

Should I open a window and let the bat fly out?

Not if anyone was asleep in that room or might have touched it. CDC asks people not to release a bat found in the home until they have talked to a public health expert, because a bite can be too small to notice and the bat is needed for testing. Louisiana’s Office of Public Health has a 24-hour line, 800-256-2748.

Who tests a bat for rabies in Lafayette?

Start with the Office of Public Health’s Infectious Disease Epidemiology Section on 800-256-2748, which answers around the clock, and with your doctor. CDC’s advice is to contact the health department or animal control to have the bat captured safely for testing.

Can bats be removed from an attic in Louisiana at any time of year?

Louisiana’s operator rules do not set a closed season for bats. They limit the method: exclusion, or capture and relocation, with killing prohibited. LDWF separately advises against removing animals in spring and early summer, when young may be left behind.

Is it safe to sweep up bat droppings myself?

A few scattered droppings carry very little risk, according to the Office of Public Health. Piles of guano are different, because disturbing them can release histoplasmosis spores. For a heavy accumulation it recommends a company that does bat work and has filtered equipment.