Mice or a rat do you think? Anyone with experience of either? Probably more the latter.

[LadyOfTheFlowers]

Okay.....

Recently moved into a victorian built terrace.
Everything lovely, except....

About a week after moving in, started no notice scratching noises, upstairs one night. Sounded like a mouse or something behind the wardrobe.

Cue DH wrestling the double wardrobe out, naked, at 11.30pm! :o
Nothing.

Then began to notice scratching under the floorboards, usually early evening, sometime sin the day. Sounds like something actually gnawing the underside of the floorboards.
(Bare floorboards so can hear quite clearly)

Kids tend to drop bits of food when they are eating obviously and some of this drops between the floorboards.
Pull up a floorboard, there is no sign of rice, crumbs, food bits etc.
Also, no sign of any droppings.

Last night (4pm) I pushed a bit of bread through a wide gap where I could easily spy on it with a torch, then forgot about it until 9pm, checked and bread was gone.

Other night, LOUD scratching is coming from inside bolier cupboard.
Open door, something has been chewing the bottom of the verticle wood slat that supports the shelves in there and there is a triangular hole going through the wall into the bathroom which is next door right by the bottom of said wood slat.

Off comes the side of the bath - the hole comes out under the bath at the foot end.
At the tap end, the pipe for the waste bath water goes out through the wall to the outside and there is a small hole around the pipe but it must be at odd angles as you cant see daylight. This pipe has been surrounded by expanding foam at some point.

DH blocks hole up to outside and also from bathroom to boiler cupboard.

All morning, LOUD frantic scratching at blocked hole to outside. It sounds bigger than a mouse to me. I used to keep rats in teens/early twenties.

Under the bath and in the boiler cupboard there are no droppings, no greasy marks or runs, no foorprints in the dust/sediment, absolutely no concrete evidence of what it is.

Landlord is coming out tomorrow to look at oven so I will mention then - I don't want to mention today as I think he will probably come rushing round straight away and I am in a bit of a mess as I have been searching for hard evidence all morning. :o

Why can I find no droppings?
I know what I am looking for but can't find it - only hear it.

Any experience?

Well.... :( We did sort the hole from the outside in, like you all said, and now the chewing sound is coming from under the fucking floor but not as frequent.

It only seems to be chewing under the floor in the kitchen doorway, nowhere else.

I can't understand what it's coming in for either as I am very 'houseproud' (what with it being rented and all) apart from the fact it's bloody freezing. Next doors' garden is full of apples, big red ones too.

I am going to peek thru the floorboards again, see if I cvan see anything - he was chewing a moment ago.

So they do breed all year round?

My Dad has come round as his work is snowed off today and has just gone to the hardware store to buy a rat trap for Roland.

I am hoping if we set it under the floor where I can get access to it it will pop off today while he is here - I used to do cleaning and we had to set mouse traps inside the wall of a cottage and sometimes the mice went in the wrong way and were maimed but still alive - Dad said if it's still alive you have to splat it and I couldn't, so he will.

Chocolate should draw him in pretty quickly shouldn't it - a last meal I would be happy with!

I do sympathise, we've had problems with mice in the house and rats in the loft at various points, they are bloody horrible.

We found these are great see here. They are rat size but also kill mice, we've had a lot of success with them.

Agree that your landlord should pay to get pest control out. Good luck!

We have a rat, it got rid of the mice We caught one in a snap trap but one has since broken into the cupboard under the sink and chewed through the rat poison tube and eaten some.

I cant work out where the food source is, the mice turned up when we had rabbits in the garage but we no longer have small pets, all the food cupboards are sealed etc. Stumped.

Dad came back with a springy rat trap called 'The Big Cheese' :o

It has some chocolate buttons on it and is set at right angles to where I think it walks along - will see.

Hope it works. I looked up traps once to discover there is an electronic one which lures them into a chamber where they're effectively "gassed" and then the trap SENDS AN EMAIL to you to report capture and death. Pricey and obviously, not necessary unless you're feeling fanatical.

We've used a Rat Zapper when we had them in the garden. I thought it was horrid to start with, but then figured an electric shock was probably a much quicker and less stressful end than waiting in a cage trap till we found it or getting caught in a spring trap that didn't manage to kill outright.

We did get one baby rat but more mice - but then DH kept moving it, which they tell you not to do...

Good luck getting shot of them. We had mice in the loft of our rental place and I'll swear they'd cross bred with elephants, the amount of noise they made!

Ha ha!

Nothing has happened yet.

I know rats are naturally inquisitive so it may take a while.

Wow.... I'd the rat is probably dead.... Of natural fucking causes, thread is 6 years old....

ZOMBIE ALERT!!!!

Squirrel?

I know this is a old thread but I'm having th exact same problem. I moved into a house a week and half ago and a week ago I started noticing scratching noises and sound of something running along the floors. Esp on a nights it's keeping me awake. Now I've checked everywhere even got up in the night mooching around like a ninja lol. Definitely something there but I don't know what and I've never ever seen any mouse dropping I check more than once a day. :(

Whereabouts in the country are you?

If you are within 30 miles of Tring, it might be glis glis (look like a cross between a mouse and a squirrel). We've had them in the cavity wall and they can be quite destructive. They're nuts about apples! I think they may hibernate though.

We've lived here over 2 years and the other week heard scratching noises in ceiling. We laid 2 traps under the floorboards and caught 1 mouse. I was just coming on here to find my thread about it and saw your's. I'm hearing scratching sounds again. Will be laying the traps for a second time.

The only thing you can really do is lay traps where you hear the noises and see what happens. But it's horrible and you have my sympathy.