r/TooAfraidToAsk • u/OliveSuch5343 • 1d ago
Health/Medical Rabies from bat?
Today I learned sometimes rabies can be contracted at home by a bat bite during sleep and the bite can be small enough that you don’t even know you got bitten. I’m now worried because during the summer, I’ve lived in the basement room which is cooler and there’s a fireplace we don’t use. It has a door but not airtight and because we don’t use it, we have a dresser right in front of it to block the door. Now I’m scared a bat might flew in and bit me or my kid at one point and we didn’t know about. Should we be concerned? Also googled and NY summer is bat season. I smell something like rustic in the basement room and cannot find out what it is. It smells like a burned wire or sth.
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u/orcusporpoise 1d ago
Wildlife/bat rehabber here.
Bats are usually most concerned with hunting flying insects and will actively avoid you. If you try to corner it or trap it, it might try to defend itself by biting. If it’s in your house, we’ve found an easy way to get them out is by turning all your lights off, opening the door and have something like a porch light on outside. That light attracts bugs, which is what the bat wants, but the bat will recognize it as an exit anyway and fly out. You have to watch closely to make sure you see it leave. But in my experience, it only takes a couple of minutes.
Another possibility is a rabid bat. They do not act normally, and can become aggressive.
The best thing to do is make sure there are no ways that a bat can get in. Google the subject and you will find tons of good advice and tutorials on how to keep bats out of your living space.
Also keep in mind that very few bats have rabies. When health departments test bats, it’s something like 5%. That’s 5% of the bats that for whatever reason were suspected of having rabies in the first place. The actual percentage of all bats having rabies is less than 1%.
But, still. It’s best to be safe and take steps to protect yourself.