Rambling Rodents

[The Medway Handyman]

Had a weird job this morning. Customer is bothered by some kind of rodent - heard scratching under the dining room floor & also in the loft conversion.

Been going on for years off & on. Stops for a while then starts again.

Poison has been put down in the loft & dead rats found.

The council rat expert reckoned they were getting into the (insulated) cavity wall space & climbing up all the way into the loft. Well maintained end of terrace (four houses) in a nice area, other three neighbours nice, clean respectable people. No squats, rubbish etc.

Guy employed me to lift some boards in the dining room & see if there was any way they were getting in.

No sign under the floor of anything but loads of dust & a 1939 newspaper. No droppings, no sign of any dust disturbance, plenty of undisturbed cobwebs.

Can a rat really climb up two storeys through cavity wall insulation to reach the loft?

Why would a rat want to do so? I guess its warm but no food source up there.

Any thoughts?

[Brian G]

They can climb up the plastic soil-vent pipes and stick their little heads up through the first floor toilet quite easily if they wish - so a cavity is no problem.

I had the a similar problem many years ago in a depot maintenace office. I'd be sat doing the old paperwork at the desk and be listening to the scurrying of mice running around on the un-insulated ceiling - until I got a little fed up one day and climbed up there armed with half a dozen traps!

I caught eight of the little perishers which cured the problem - but I never did find their entrance hole.

Brian G

[ARWadsworth]

No food source? What about the insulation around the electric cables?

Adam

[Tim Lamb]

In article , The Medway Handyman writes

Yes.

I have an annual late Autumn problem with Wood Mice. They have access to the house soffit through an adjoining timber barn and appear to come in for warmth as they tend to bring their own food: Walnuts mainly!

Rats may just be optimists, hoping for a food bonanza behind that next stud.

One source of food might be hibernating cluster flies of which we seem to have plenty.

regards

[keith_765]

conversion.

Actually experienced this, while taking the roof off a two story hose and extending to an extension. There was a pile of straw that starlings had carried into the attic for nesting over a long period of time. I had to remove the straw and after the first hand full was removed a rat jumped out, ran up the drop on to the wall plate along the guttering on to the scaffolding and disappeared. When I told the occupier about the rat, she said that explains the disappearing potatoes in the extension. the rat was climbing down the new cavity wall into the roof space. the evidence was the white rat shit found in the straw.