Would you open your loft hatch if you knew you had 'guests' in the loft?

[UnderTheNameOfSanders]

One of the bits of advice to keep a house cool is to open the loft hatch to help heat go up there instead of staying in the main house.

If you knew you almost certainly had rodents ( European edible dormouse - Wikipedia ) up there (because pest control are currently involved in trying to remove them) would you still open the hatch? What's the chance of them falling through the hole or climbing down?

Is it not a fire risk to leave it open?

No. I know that mice live in the walls (rural country property, but thank goodness they're not rats), and as I have heard scrabbling upstairs, they are the reason why I have never opened the loft hatch since moving here. I do not want to invite them to live in the rest of the house, thank-you very much.

Last time I opened our loft hatch a dead bird fell at my feet so avoiding it from now on .