BELLEVIEW, Fla. — A smelly problem at a Marion County high school is driving administrators batty.
- Marion Schools had to hire pest control company for bats
- Hundreds of bats took roost at Belleview High School
- Pest control company needs $18,000 more to seal buildings
- Read more Marion County stories
Now, Marion County Public Schools will be digging further into their pockets to clean up a bat problem at Bellview High School, paying a pest control company $18,000 extra on top of the $30,000 the district has already spent.
The trouble began in August, when hundreds of bats were seen hanging around the tops of buildings at Belleview High School.
The worst hit was the administration building, where there were reports of bat droppings and the strong smell of ammonia.
Students and faculty had to be evacuated while a pest control company went to work, costing the school about $30,000.
"Getting people out of the building where the odor was the big thing. We don't want to put people in harm's way, so we were able to relocate them elsewhere on campus for a few days, (for) couple (of) weeks. Now (people are) back in the building, no issue at all," said Kevin Christian, a spokesman for Marion Public Schools.
A pest control company estimated the number of bats in the thousands, and they infested several buildings. Mesh netting to keep the bats from re-nesting are in high places, but the real problem is how to keep the winged creatures from squeezing through small cracks.
Some of the cracks were already filled with industrial strength foam, but to do it right, the pest control company hired by the school needs another $18,000 to finish the job, which the school board has agreed to pay them, following a Tuesday evening meeting.
Some of that money will go toward building “bat houses," because the species is protected. The houses can accommodate up to 5,000 bats.
For now, school officials say the campus is bat free, and students can rest easy knowing that their school can go back to being “the home of the rattlers.”