Hunted, bad-mouthed and chased off like flies, bats have long endured a reputation as nature's fiends, synonymous with vampires, haunted houses and rabies.
But the world's only flying mammals are enjoying newfound affection across North Carolina and nationwide, sought out as mosquito-gobbling helpers who can roost in backyard houses alongside songbirds.
With the click of a mouse, more than 100 vendors selling bat houses appear online, some of them reporting sales that have quintupled over the last five years. You can buy them in 12 different styles, including a cottage, bungalow and Victorian.
Bat houses are for sale everywhere - from Home Depot to Raleigh's Burke Brothers Hardware. Exterminators who once flushed them out of attics report building alternative housing for the critters they displace.
"Everybody has got a softer place in their heart," said George Norfleet, owner of Batman Wildlife Control near Fayetteville, who now sells about 60 bat houses a year as a sideline. "Ten years ago, people would spray bats with insecticide, do ugly things to them. We don't see that anymore. There's a place for everything."
A big reason for attracting rather than repelling bats, 17 species of which appear in North Carolina, is their diet. A typical sonar-driven bat can gorge itself on 1,000 mosquitoes an hour, according to Bat Conservation International, the advocacy group based in Austin, Texas - home to the million-plus Congress Avenue Bridge bat colony.
The West Nile Virus scare - more than 600 cases nationwide last year - fueled demand for bat houses as mosquito bites threatened more than itchy bites. Sympathy for bats also kicked in as news spread about white-nose syndrome, which has killed an estimated 1million hibernating bats since 2006 and has struck in caves as nearby as Virginia and Tennessee. Wind turbines have also killed bats, fueling the conservation push.
But bat advocates point to a general shift in thinking, and a greater interest in bats as a piece of a larger ecosystem. One biology professor at UNC-Asheville has dedicated an entire class to bats, and N.C. State University's Leopold Wildlife Club builds bat houses to raise money.
Also, the rabies fear is being slowly debunked as mythology. Rabies is found in less thanone-tenth of 1 percent of the bat population, and having one on your land does far more good than harm, said Lisa Gatens, curator of mammals at the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences.
"Last week, a guy e-mailed me about finding a bat in a shed, but he was worried he might have disturbed it," she said. "I get those letters as least as often as the terrified ones."
Costing as little as $10 and as much as $100, and holding as many as 125 bats, the bat house comes with the warning that bats are picky. Instructions vary, but most advise mounting the bat dwelling on a building or a pole, then a tree as a last resort.
Just south of Atlanta, Robert Ball now builds and sells about 300 bat houses each year, up from 40 when he started in 2005. His clients include orchards in California that want bats to cut back on pesticides, and Disney World, which designed exhibits along with Bat Conservation International.
"Bats really get a bad rap," said Bob Jankowski, president of Critter Control in Durham, which also installs houses. "People say they're so ugly - well, they don't think we're attractive, either."
Just don't try to hold them. They're squeamish, even the kind that drink blood.
