Bat Removal in Knightdale, NC

From a rail depot to US 64

Knightdale was incorporated on March 9, 1927. The original downtown grew up around a railroad depot built in the early 1900s, and a 1940 fire destroyed several businesses and homes that were later rebuilt. By the 1960s the town’s center of gravity had shifted to US Highway 64, and a sewer expansion in the late 1980s opened the way for subdivisions like Parkside, Planter’s Walk, and Mingo Creek.

Growth has only sped up. Knightdale had 11,401 residents in 2010 and 19,435 in 2020, and new neighborhoods keep going up along I-87 and I-540.

What that means for bats

Knightdale’s homes are mostly from the late 1980s onward, so the openings we find are construction details:

• Soffit returns where the gutter line turns the corner into a gable
• Fascia joints that have opened a little as wood trim aged
• Gable vents with loose or failed screening
• Dormer corners and roof-to-wall joints above garages
• Ridge-vent ends on the newer, steeper roofs

Houses in the older subdivisions are now 30-plus years old, so a little age is showing: caulk that’s failed, trim that’s shrunk, screening that’s torn. Newer houses have fewer of those and more of the one-overlooked-gap problem. Both are fixable.

The Neuse, Mingo Creek, and dusk

The Neuse River runs just west of town, and the Mingo Creek Greenway, a 3.5-mile trail, cuts through Knightdale’s neighborhoods. Knightdale Station Park and the town’s environmental park add more green space. Bats feeding over the creek and the ponds at dusk are normal and useful.

What tells us there’s a roost is different: bats emerging from the same gap on your house at sunset, chirping or scratching above a ceiling in the evening, or droppings piling up on a porch or driveway under one part of the roof.

A tip that doesn’t apply to bats

People often hear that trimming trees back from the roof keeps animals out. It helps with squirrels. It does nothing for bats, which fly straight to an opening. The fix is sealing the building.

How we get them out

We inspect the whole house, seal every opening bats aren’t using, and install one-way devices on the ones they are. After the colony has left, those openings are sealed permanently, and the job is covered by a warranty. North Carolina doesn’t allow bat evictions from May 1 through July 31, when pups can’t fly, and paid evictions must be done by a licensed Wildlife Control Agent.

Find out more about bat removal and exclusion, attic cleanup after a colony, and what to do about a bat inside the house. Landlords and HOAs can see bat removal for HOAs and landlords, businesses commercial bat removal, and congregations churches and older buildings.

Knightdale is on the east side of the area we serve from Raleigh. See every town on our page for bat removal across the Triangle.