Workers battling bats

Maintenance personnel with Fairfield Independent School District work as jacks-of-all-trades daily, but last week they pooled their talents as bat removal experts.

Bats have taken roost at Fairfield junior high school and at times have been swooping through the building.

Assistant band director Paige Billings reports that on a few occasions, a bat has taken flight through the band hall during class.

“They’ve never hurt anybody, but there is a smell,” FISD maintenance director Ron Harris says.

“The smell goes away quickly once the bats are removed,” he adds.

Harris reports that a bat needs only about a onequarter inch gap to get inside a building. Exterior gaps often are found between flashing and brickwork, or where some insulation has deteriorated.

Once inside the building, in the ceiling area, the bats can get inside rooms by wiggling through gaps between acoustic ceiling tiles. The ceiling tiles can shift with normal building movement, and, especially in the case of a school, by being bumped by students and objects thrown by students.

Maintenance personnel removed about 20 bats by hand last week, but that is not the primary method of removal, and shifted ceiling tiles to close gaps.

Some gaps, such as around heating vents, are required and can’t be sealed, though.

An inspection of the exterior of FJHS will be made to determine the entry point for the flying mammals, then a net supported by a wooden frame will be placed on the exterior covering the entry point.

Harris says that bats can exit a building while the net is in place, but are unable to enter.

Removal takes a couple of weeks as the bats must exit to find food and water.

After all the bats have exited the building, the entry point will be closed.

The maintenance director reports that personnel learned bat removal about 10 years ago when the intermediate school gymnasium was torn down to make room for construction of the elementary school.

A bat expert was called for the job and maintenance workers learned from him.

Since then, bats have been removed from four locations at Fairfield high school and two areas at FJHS.

Harris reports that state law prohibits eradication of the flying mammals, so they must be moved.

FJHS students are being cautioned in daily announcements not to touch any bat they find in the school.