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A Bat in the House or Bedroom in Shreveport: What to Do

Checked against Louisiana Department of Health, LDWF and CDC guidance on November 4, 2026. How we research this site.

A single bat loose in a room and a colony in the attic are two different problems. The first is a health question and comes first. The second is a building job that Louisiana only allows to be done one way.

If the bat is in a room where someone was asleep

This is the case to take seriously. The Louisiana Office of Public Health says rabies is very prevalent in bat populations, even in urban areas, and that bats in living areas, especially where people sleep, can be extremely dangerous. Of the 150 rabid animals Louisiana reported from 2000 to 2023, 80 were bats, and the Department of Health’s 2023 report notes a higher density of bat rabies in the western parishes. It also says the state does no active wildlife surveillance, so those counts understate the real picture.

CDC’s guidance is to avoid touching the bat, contact your health department or animal control to have it captured for testing, and not release it until you have spoken to a public health expert. A bat bite can be small enough that you do not know it happened. If you know you were bitten or scratched, the Louisiana Department of Health says to wash the wound with soap and water straight away and see a doctor.

If you are told to catch it, CDC describes doing it with leather gloves, a container placed over the bat and a piece of cardboard slid underneath and taped down. If you cannot do that safely, ask the health department what to do instead.

If nobody was asleep and nobody touched it

Keep people and pets out of the room and shut the door. Do not try to catch a bat with bare hands, or swat it. Then work out how it got in. A bat in the living space may have come down from a roost in the attic or walls, which is why the Office of Public Health’s first step in any exclusion is sealing every opening between the attic and the living quarters.

Bats in the attic, walls or chimney

Louisiana’s rules for permitted operators are narrow. Bats may be excluded, or captured and relocated, and nothing else: killing them is prohibited. The Office of Public Health goes further and calls exclusion the only effective way to remove bats from a building for good, because relocated bats have excellent homing instincts and come back.

An exclusion, as the Office of Public Health describes it, works like this:

• Every opening into the attic is sealed except the ones the bats are using, with steel wool, caulk, flashing or screening.
• A one-way excluder goes over each active opening, so bats can leave at dusk but cannot get back in.
• The excluders stay up for at least five to seven days, longer if storms keep the bats in.
• Only then are the excluders taken down and the last openings sealed. A chimney roost gets a cap afterwards.

Timing matters. LDWF advises against removing animals in spring and early summer, the breeding season for most wildlife, because young left behind in an attic die there. With bats, young that cannot yet fly cannot leave through an excluder. A colony that is sealed in at the wrong time becomes a dead-animal smell inside the wall. Who handles that in Shreveport is a separate question.

The droppings

Bat guano is a breeding ground for histoplasmosis, a fungal lung infection caught by breathing spores when dried droppings are disturbed. The Office of Public Health says scattered droppings pose very little risk, but piles of guano are a real one. If you have to go near it, it advises a fine mist of water to keep the dust down, disposable gloves and clothing, and a mask that filters fine particles. For an attic with heavy accumulation it recommends a company that does bat work, because they have the filtered equipment for it.

If the guano is sealed off in a space your heating and cooling system does not draw air from, the Office of Public Health says the people living in the house are generally not exposed.

Finding someone to do it

LDWF publishes its list of permitted nuisance wildlife operators online, and you can filter it to those who handle bats. The Office of Public Health also keeps a short directory of companies that have told it they do bat work in Louisiana. It is clear that it does not license or regulate them and that a listing is not an endorsement, and it recommends getting at least two quotes. Either way, ask to see a current LDWF permit. We do not publish a price: it depends on how many openings the roofline has and how much guano has to come out, and someone has to look at the building to say.

For what is specific to bats in Shreveport’s older housing, see bat removal in Shreveport.

Questions people ask

I woke up and there was a bat in my bedroom. What should I do?

Do not touch it and do not let it go yet. CDC advises contacting your health department or animal control to have a bat found in the home captured for rabies testing, and not releasing it until you have spoken to a public health expert. In Louisiana the Office of Public Health has a 24-hour line, 800-256-2748. Talk to your doctor as well.

Can I just wait for the bats in my attic to leave and seal the holes?

No. The Louisiana Office of Public Health says that is not appropriate, because bats do not all leave at the same time and some stay in all night. The method it describes is one-way excluders over the openings the bats use, left in place for at least five to seven days, with every other gap sealed first.

Is it legal to kill bats in Louisiana?

Under Louisiana’s nuisance wildlife operator rules, bats may only be excluded, or captured and relocated. Lethal control is prohibited. The Office of Public Health adds that using pesticides against bats is illegal.

Do mothballs or ultrasonic repellers get rid of bats?

The Louisiana Office of Public Health says ultrasonic devices do not work against bats, and that mothballs would have to be used in quantities that are a health hazard to people before they had any effect.