I live in a house built in 1893. There's bats in my attic, have been for the past 2 seasons.

Obviously, this is no bueno. After their migration season passes, I'm going to seal up the areas around damn near the entire house where they're getting in. Winter time so I'm not sweating my ass off in a tyvek suit.

The other issue is cleaning up after them in the attic. Two seasons of them being up there has completely ruined the shredded cotton insulation.

I wanted that basically solid rocket fuel insulation out of there anyway.

I understand that if I hire someone to do this, it'll cost seventeen trillion dollars, so I might as well do it myself.

So what do I do to get rid of this stuff? Regular dumpster? How do I get rid of all of their urine and stuff on the wood? Spray it down with bleach & scrub?

I own a powered air purifying respirator, and had planned to just wear that.

I don’t know how to advise you to clean up the mess but keep it really fucking quiet what you are doing. Fixing with bats right to destroy your home is a serious crime unfortunately.

From what I understand it's inadvisable from a legal standpoint to mess with them while they're there, but it's not a crime to prevent them from living there next season.

First of all, we have no idea where OP is located. Laws are different in different places. In the US, there is nothing illegal about this. Some states have laws about bat exclusions, but doing it in winter would comply with most of them.

If they have a warm place to stay for the winter there is a good chance they just stay and hibernate, and not migrate!! It is illegal to kill them, but in the fall when the babies are able to fly go on the roof find where they are going in and out. Usually see urine stains and droppings. Use 2" black water line as slides for them to get out they can't climb back up the tube because it's slippery and narrow, seal up everything else, wait a couple weeks they should all be gone, pull tubes out and finish sealing EVERYTHING!!! they can squeeze in a gap as tight as 2 quarters stacked 3/16".... wheen the attic is cool and free of bats tyvek suit, full face respirator, shop vac, and a fogger with sanitizer if you can acquire probably best. Couple days of work and you just saved yourself $20,000

Problem is that they're getting in around basically the entire perimeter of my house. It's going to be a MASSIVE pain in the ass, but it needs to be done.

Weirdly enough some close friends had similar issues and really great luck with obnoxious ultrasonic emitters.

Didn't cause any issues for the dogs and they just... Left. It was like 100 bucks on amazon

From what I’ve read, the frequency at which bats hear is very close to humans.

They probs plan to stay there all winter.

For the insulation just call your regular trash service, most let you schedule a bulk pickup for a small fee. A lot cheaper than a dumpster if youre not doing a full gut. For the wood Id skip bleach and use an enzyme cleaner instead, it actually breaks down the urine crystals instead of just bleaching them. Spray it heavy and let it sit before you scrub. PAPR is smart, Id double up gloves too cause that stuff soaks in everywhere

Slowly close it up but leave them space to escape. Once you have just a small section left to seal, wait until just after midnight and close it up entirely.

Definitely wear the PPE, and agree wit the other poster about wearing a tyvek suit.

Bag up the insulation, spray the wood with disinfectant, a hand pump lawn sprayer would be helpful for that. If it were me, I would use .5% hydrogen peroxide (the active ingredient in vet and farm disinfectant sprays), it will take care of bacteria, virus, and fungus - and not make your house reek like bleach would. I'd even do a light spray on the dry wall, but very light and let it dry completely before re-insulating.

And good on you for caring that the bats get out safely, they are a very beneficial animal over all and already have enough hurdles staying alive out there :)

Call Bruce Wayne