Bat Infestation Forces Family from Lawrenceville Home

A Lawrenceville family cannot live in their own home because it has been taken over by bats. Dozens of bats. Bats that just will not leave.

Joel Johnson rented the home on Hidden Valley Drive in unincorporated Lawrenceville with his fiancee and two children. Then, just before Thanksgiving, he found a bat flying through the house. Johnson tells 11Alive's Blayne Alexander when he went into an upstairs room to find the animal, he found several more bats. 

Gwinnett County Animal Control removed the bats, but that did not get rid of them for good. 

"I could hear them in the garage, in the bedroom above where we slept," Johnson told Alexander.

He called Animal Control again, who then called the health department. The home was declared a health hazard due to a "large infestation" of bats and a high risk for rabies.

Johnson and his family were forced to move out and into a hotel. The family were given rabies shots as a precaution.

The bats are an endangered species so pesticides cannot be used on them. Johnson will just have to wait until the bats leave on their own. That may not be until at least March, since the animals are hibernating.