Help!! Rats in the walls

[Bluebi]

Will they get into the house? I’m alone for the evening and can hear scurrying and scratching sounds coming from the wall of my bedroom. It’s the wall that connects our house to next door (semi detached). Will they definitely be in the house as well?

Other than setting the whole house on fire and burning it all to the ground what can I do tonight?

I hate them so much. Shudders

Mice make a huge amount of noise, so don’t assume it is rats. It could also be a squirrel in the roof, the sound can carry down.

Oh no, that is worrying. Can you hear them in all rooms or only in one? Have you spoken to your neighbours about it?

You will have to get a pest specialist out.

Are you sure it’s rats? I mistook a lot of scrabbling around noise for a day when it turned out to be a couple of pigeons!

That sounds awful op Are you sure it is rats and not mice? Both awful I know but it would certainly seem less horrible to be dealing with mice? Have you seen any rats outside near your home, in yours or the neighbour's garden maybe to make you suspect rats?

Our neighbour is a 90 year old man with dementia so I don’t really want to bother him. I will speak to his daughter when I next see her.
It could be mice or rats. It sounds rodent like though. Just text DH and he said he could also hear sounds in the living room last night but thought he was imagining it. Again sounded like it was in the walls.

Oh ...double posted with previous poster 😁

Could be bats!!

In my experience they can't get down into the house. It may be mice, they do make an awful lot of noise. I live in a row of cottages which have interconnecting attics. Unfortunately only three out of five will allow the pest control man to come out and treat which means it never gets effectively sorted. We have him out once a year, usually about this time. It's been happening for four years now and we have never found that they make their way into the actual home. But I do agree the noise is horrendous. Just give the pest control people a call tomorrow and play some music in the meantime. I used to find YouTube videos of cats miaowing and played them loudly which used to shut them up!!

Ew, how horrible!

In your shoes I would:
check around for droppings or chewed stuff that would indicate they'd been inside
Check the scratching is in the wall not in the room or chimney or roof etc
Ensure there's no food anywhere accessible (including boxes of cereal etc)
Go to neighbour and alert them to it
Bang on the wall if you hear scratching, it scares them off a bit
Check around outside for piles of leaves or rubbish etc they could be hiding in and ways in - could be small gaps in wall
Decide what you're going to do about it - Amazon could do next day delivery on traps etc if you order now, or alert your landlord etc

Some cats or terriers can scare them off - if you know someone who is willing to bring yours round

They tend to be scared of people so I wouldn't be that worried about being there overnight, though if there was somewhere else you an go, you'd probably sleep better!

It'll be mice.

Could the neighbour with dementia be struggling to look after himself, leaving food around that attracts them? I'd not leave it too long for his sake as well.

Research pest control companies tonight. If you have the stomach, take a torch out and look for any potential entry points at ground level (mine temporary ratty lodgers we're getting into wall cavity then attic via a very small hole at the gas meter box then burrowing down (maybe 6") through soft soil into hole into wall cavity following a pipe. Earplugs for sleeping. Do you have any bushes/plants against house? They don't like exposing themselves and like to remain covered. Thinking of you.

Been around with a torch and checked all the corners of the rooms/ pulled sofas out etc no sign of them in the house thank goodness. But I don’t see why they would be in the walls and not creep inside. So they must be coming in somewhere? Yuck. Yuck. Yuck. Pest control people will be called first thing in the morning

Er won't the party wall in a semi be solid?

We had mice in the dividing wall between us and the neighbour and they made a lot of noise and sounded a lot bigger than they were. They used the wall to run up to the attic, which apparently is quite common, so if they are anywhere in the house the attic is a possibility.

Mice make an amazing amount of noise , as does a pigeon that has fallen down the chimney , get a uv torch beause it shows up if any mice have been running along the edges of your rooms , I was actually quite shocked as they had been everywhere .

We had a rat in the cavity. Came in through the garage. We baited the attic with rat poison. It worked but did attract bluebottles which came into the en suite via the fan I think. Soon dispersed though.
We then used a plug in sonic rodent repeller which seemed to work but only within a relatively short distance.
DH found entry point and blocked it.
Its horrible hearing the bugger scrabbling around but they’re not likely to come inside your living area.

I had mice/rats once (never found out which). If they're in the party wall and you can't find an access point, they might just be going for your neighbour's stuff, especially if he has dementia and might leave food lying around.
Do you have any of those big plastic boxes with the lids? Get any dry food such as your cereals, pasta and bags of sugar/flour into those sort of boxes if you can. Clear up any food waste in your kitchen including washing dishes asap. If they can't smell the food or get to it they are less likely to go to yours if they can get fed next door, then tomorrow hopefully you can get someone in to sort them out.

I've had this same issue for years. I was petrified when I first discovered it and moved out and everything.

It's possible for the rats which it sounds like to me OP to enter your home but they can stay in the walls too. I have a loft in my bedroom and pest control have spotted a rat on camera, left poison and everything but it is a yearly problem and one point it was quite severe.... the rats were dying inside the loft and causing a stench in my room. Horrendous off meat smell it's very distinctive! I had to get everything cleared out from the loft.... git onto my local housing for the instalation to be removed, loft cleaned and then new installation put down again. Never had a rat running round and no holes in my house pest control say its the drains and we are a row of houses, live by a railway and lots of wild fields behind.

It’s the time of year for mice. We get a few in the winter due to our location and the age of our house, few small gaps where we can’t afford to get our house re-rendered. Their droppings are tiny and easy to miss, like black grains of rice, and the mice will come in/out of the tiniest little gaps. Put all your food away in cupboards/drawers and clear away any washing up or leftovers immediately. Failing that Screwfix do good snap traps and peanut butter is a good bait.

Even solid brick has cracks and they can find a way through over time.

More likely to be mice or squirrels. Or if you are in Buckinghamshire then it could be glis glis (which are the bane of my life!!!)

A mouse can get though a hole that’s smaller than 1cm and rats 2cm, so think tiny.

We get them once a year when the field at the end of our garden is ploughed. They search for a new home but seem to move on fairly quickly (pest guy confirmed this in our case).

My top recommendation is to search YouTube for "mouse repellent noise". The one I usually use is by a user called Billabong Vids. Get a laptop or phone, stick it right next to the wall (touching if poss, so the sound travels better), crank up the volume and wait! You hear them stop moving, and if you play it long enough they don't seem to come back. I've left it overnight before when they're really driving me mad.

Now, a disclaimed: I don't know whether this would upset various types of pets. I've played it with my dog around and he hasn't even opened his eyes, although I don't play it in the same room as him in case it would hurt him somehow!

Following on from my previous message, get multiple sound-making devices and point them anywhere you have heard the noise!

Also, "disclaimed" was meant to be "disclaimer" in my last post!