They dropped six figures to rid their home of thousands of bats — now this couple is sharing the costly lessons every homebuyer should know

Riecken told Moneywise they continue to hear from other homeowners who have similar problems.

“We’re still consistently helping homeowners dealing with bats in their houses,” he said. “We’ve helped dozens of folks with similar issues — some local and others further afield.”

While the couple’s experience is extreme, it shows that even a home that seems move-in ready can hide expensive surprises.

A costly surprise

After years of saving while living in a trailer, Riecken and Powell finally found a four-bedroom, four-storey house perched atop a hill. Surrounded by towering pines and draped in Spanish moss, nearly every window had picturesque views of the forest or Puget Sound.

“We’d saved up for years living in [a] trailer,” Powell told The Washington Post, “We just saved and saved.”

The white-shingled home was dated and the couple could see it needed work, but at roughly $850,000, it seemed like a bargain in one of America’s hottest housing markets. Since 2019, U.S. home prices had surged 54%, and in King County, Washington, the median home price had climbed to US$885,000.

There was one warning sign, however. The home inspection noted evidence of “rodents.”

But the problem lurking inside the walls wasn’t rats.

It was thousands of bats.

And getting rid of them wasn’t as simple as calling an exterminator. In Washington, every bat species is legally protected, meaning they can’t be trapped or killed. Instead, they must be humanely “excluded” from a home by sealing off entry points, but only after the young bats are old enough to fly. During the summer maternity season, homeowners are often forced to wait.

Looking back, Riecken told Moneywise the biggest lesson wasn’t that they skipped an inspection, but that they misunderstood what the inspection was actually telling them.

“The inspection conveyed it as a ‘possible rodent issue’… so we thought it was a minor mouse or rat problem,” he said. “That’s how the inspection read and was conveyed.”

The report advised the buyers to review the seller’s disclosure or consult a pest specialist, but that comment was buried among dozens of pages.

Another costly surprise came after closing. Because the home was purchased through an estate sale, Washington’s standard seller disclosure form wasn’t required.

“Even experienced home buyers might not know that,” he said. “This was essentially our first real home purchase so we had no idea.”

After the bats were discovered, the couple learned previous inspections had documented the infestation years earlier.

Then came a devastating financial blow: Their homeowners insurance denied coverage because the damage was considered pre-existing, leaving them with remediation estimates that were over $200,000.

Instead of walking away, they took on the project.

“We got clever,” he said. “Instead of paying $36,000 to exclude the bats, we waited them out because they were migratory, and we chose to do the work in the winter.”

Riecken estimates the family has reduced the cost to roughly $60,000 to $70,000 through a combination of DIY work and being selective with contractors, though repairs are still ongoing.

What Riecken wants every homebuyer to know

The ordeal has turned Riecken into an advocate for buyer due diligence, and his advice goes beyond bats.

Don’t rely on your realtor’s inspector. Instead, Riecken recommends you “find one independently.”

Attend the inspection yourself. Being “present when the inspection happens” is advice he wishes he’d followed.

Highlight every recommendation in the inspection report. Don’t just skim the summary. Instead, “take a highlighter and identify every single recommendation in that document,” he says.