Aberdeen bat hunt goes on

The bat problem in two Aberdeen area apartment complexes is not uncommon this time of year, a pest company representative said Monday morning, as his firm began removal activities at one of the locations.

Advanced Pest Management trucks were parked in Perrywood Gardens south of Aberdeen, starting what company manager, James Foley, said would be a somewhat lengthy process.

"I expect we will probably be here for a couple days," he said.

After identifying the points of entry, which Foley said were areas where the buildings have rotten wood or other issues, the company started installing trap doors. The doors will allowbats to exit the building, but not come back in.

"The first clear night, I'd say 90 percent of them will be gone," Foley said, adding that they would remove the trap doors and seal them toward the end of the week. Thebats will go out hunting insects and other food on clear nights.

Residents of the Cranberry Run Apartments, which inside the Aberdeen city limits, and at Perrywood Gardens alerted the Harford County Health Department recently to a bat infestation in several of the buildings. After holding a community meeting to educate residents on safety precautions, Health Department spokesperson William Wiseman said last week, it was left up to the management of the apartments to handle the situation.

The problem at Perrywood Gardens is a minor one, Foley of Advanced Pest Management said, especially compared to homes where the company has found 300 to 400 bats.

In the worst of the infestation found at Perrywood Gardens, Foley estimated there were 75 to 100 bats in a single building.

"A building this size," he said, "it's a pretty small problem compared to what everyone is making it out to be."

Perrywood Gardens Community Manager Angie Mullings, too, said last week that the apartment complex had a similar problem around eight years ago and it wasn't something their maintenance staff hadn't dealt with before.

But with the health department's involvement, she added, maintenance staff was wary about handling the bats, and thus, they hired Advance Pest Management.

The bat situation at Perrywood Gardens was not unusual, Foley added later Monday.

"[In] Harford County, they [bats] are a lot more common then what people think," he said.

The bats start out in homeowners' attics, he said, because most homeowners do not go up into attics very often, he explained.

During hot spells, like Harford County has been experiencing the past couple of weeks, the high temperatures in the attic become unbearable for the bats, who start to gravitate down the inside of walls to get cooler.

Foley emphasized that the bats were not trying to be around people and that was, "the last thing" they would want. Regardless, when they get into the walls is when homeowners generally realize there are bats in their residence.

"Bat's can go unnoticed in a house for years," he said.

The bats at Perrywood Gardens, he said, had probably been there for a couple of years, but he added that it was "hard to tell."

A voice message left at Cranberry Run's office Monday morning was not returned.