This family has a colony of bats living in their roof, but endangered status makes removal difficult

Waking up to screeching, squeaking and squealing voices in the attic may sound like a Halloween nightmare, but it is a reality for a Saskatchewan couple living with a cauldron of bats lives in their roof, and they say there's nothing they can do about it.

Rachelle and Kelly Swan bought their house in Spiritwood, 172 kilometres northwest of Saskatoon, two years ago. Last August, they found a bat flapping in their living room.

"We thought it had gotten in the door or something, but when we found another one outside in our soffit, we were like, OK, maybe something else is going on here," Rachelle said.

"We called the exterminators all over the province and they just said good luck. They're protected. There's nothing that we can do about them."

They also called conservation officers, who set them up with a roofing company that specializes in relocating bats. It took more than $5,000, two days of work and more than 60 cans of silicone to seal up the roof and install bat cones that have a one way valve so that the animals can leave but not come back in. "The mice with wings," as Rachelle calls them, can get through a finger-sized hole.

The family was told to wait until spring, as the bats were hibernating.

"All winter, we heard them up in the main beam where they're the loudest. Our kids heard them in their walls and the roof," Rachelle said. "Are they partying up there?"

When spring rolled around, they found another one in their kitchen aquarium and six more in a mouse trap they had set out thinking they had seen mouse droppings. Another visit from a conservation officer led to him getting bitten by one of the little brown bats.

"Public health told us our family is now considered at risk. Over the course of two weeks, our family of five had to get 47 needles."

The family has to go regularly for boosters on their rabies vaccines until this is dealt with. Kelly is also in remission from cancer and said she is vulnerable to histoplasmosis, a lung infection caused by breathing spores of a fungus often found in bat droppings.

In a written statement, the Ministry of Environment said the bats and their place of habitation are protected from interference, harassment and killing under the Wildlife Act. 

"Two of the eight bat species found in Saskatchewan are also listed as endangered under the federal Species at Risk Act. It is illegal to kill, disturb or exclude bats without a permit pursuant to The Wildlife Act," the statement said.

"Bats can only be excluded, allowing exit but not re-entry, from buildings in May or September with a permit under Saskatchewan's Bat Exclusion Policy. Outside of May or September, considerations will be made by the Ministry of Environment on a case-by-case basis."

The ministry said many bat species are in trouble from habitat loss, or from a disease called white-nose syndrome, which has killed over 12 million bats in North America and has no known cure.