Songbird Essentials Bat House Kit

I bought 2 of these for my kids for Christmas last year, not 2012. Quality manufactured, they are not. The pieces don't line up and dad had to intervene a lot. I must add that I am not sure of the required age ranges on these. My kids were 7 and 12. Finally ended up gluing most of the pieces together and then nailing for good measure. Anyhow, they went on a tree in April 2012 along with a much larger pre-assembled bat house. Not sure if we put them up too late, but no bats in 2012. Will wait for next year. They have stood up to the weather, so far.

The two outside triangle pieces were exactly the same instead of mirror images and the cutout in the back where it was supposed to hang was at the wrong end. I was able to assemble it with some modifications. So overall I was happy

One piece was split, had to glue before able to assemble, instructions call for nails but that will cause further splitting in cedar, used screws and assembled easily

Purchased 2 of these kits - parts were warped, and one side was cut smaller than the other side and my husband had to fill in the gap. Kind of disappointed when you buy a kit - you shouldn't have to improvise to alter it to fit. Could have made one from scratch just as easy for less.

There were no clear directions for a child to read. There should have been numbered, illustrated directions. When we hammered the nails in they went through the narrow sections at an angle and split the thin wood. This meant that the final project has nails that stick out, and are not safe for the child to touch. Also, when I looked up on the internet on where to hang a bat house, there is no practical place, so the completed house sits on a shelf in our closet. This was a complete waste of money.

I bought two of these and was able to assemble them, but ended up building them twice. The included instructions aren't that great. It comes with nails but we ended up putting it together with screws after the first disassembly bent all of the nails.

Bat house kit came on time and still in the package just as described int he description. It was very easy to put together, only took about ten minutes. The instructions could have had a little more detail, but they were still helpful. The only thing that was a little hard to tell is which side was the rough side.

Using caulk and painting a dark color will help make this the most suitable to habitation. Very easy to put together. I used exterior screws instead of the supplied nails. Worked great!