If you choose to put up a bat house, make sure it is in an area that has minimal disturbance from people and animals. Sometimes sick bats fall out of the roost where children and household pets easily can pick them up.

Bat houses attached to the sides of buildings tend to have good success, but, not only is the usual intent of erecting a bat house to get bats away from buildings, but bat droppings will accumulate below creating nuisance or hazard.

Bat houses on poles in open areas are functionally proven. In fact, many reports demonstrate that two houses, back to back, mounted on an 12’-14’ pole are optimal, likely due, in part, to the need for early morning warmth and late afternoon cool. Bats rarely occupy houses placed in trees. Installing bat houses before March improves the chance of occupancy. It is not unusual for bat houses to remain unoccupied for a year or more. Bats prefer houses that are within 1/4 mile of water with enough room to drink on the wing (drinking while flying).

Among the eight largest samples reported by individual people who had erected multiple bat houses, use rates varied from 0 to 96%. For example, at one Oregon location, none of 18 houses placed on trees in dense forest were occupied, while 23 of 24 at another Oregon site attracted bats when placed both outside and inside a barn and on poles at the edge of woodlots. The only one not used was mounted on a shaded tree trunk.

It has long been believed that bat houses were most likely to be occupied after at least one or two seasons had passed, but this study found exactly the opposite. Most houses used by bats were occupied in the first season. Eighty-five percent were first used within two seasons and only 15% in the third through sixth seasons.