Rodent in the attic

[Dan S. MacAbre]

We've had a few squirrels - you should see them climb up a wall. You can't help but admire them. But once you've had one, others will follow the scent. They will chew the woodwork in your loft, and the noise is quite worrying. I got a cage trap, and in it I left a milk bottle top full of peanut butter. For me, it usually worked in about half an hour

- the rattling and banging as they try to chew their way out is quite astonishing. You're not allowed to release them, but I don't have the heart to kill them, so I drove them out to a nearby industrial estate at night and let them go. I wore motorcycle gloves in case of a bite, but they just run out.

[fred]

Given the time of year my guess is it would be a mouse. Rats don't generally like to in the vicinity of humans.

I've seen professional rat catchers bait the traps with tomatoes.

If you use those blue ball poisons be aware rattie may take them away back to his lair. I found a collection of them at the back of the workshop one year. (In the finish we enouraged feral cats to prowl the area.)

[Simon T]

GOT THE B A S T A R D!!!!

Turns out it WAS a mouse after all.

Produced some bloody big droppings for such a tiny creature though, could have sworn I was dealing with something larger.

Anyway, have disposed of the body, rebaited and reset the trap (ended up using peanut butter, which did the trick rather nicely). See if anything else takes the bait.

Thanks for the advice guys. On my next day off I shall see about cleaning up all the mess it made!

[The Natural Philosopher]

Raises glass ...HOWZAT!

[ARW]

That opening the loft hatch and taking the first smell on a red hot summers day.............

[critcher]

I put a video camera in my loft and two traps, it was a rat causing all the scratching noises. The camera was connected to my pc via fire-wire and a long vigil ensued, the trap was baited with Marmite crisps and I also tied the traps to the beams to stop the rat running of with them. The videos showed the rat doing a thorough inspection and finally chewing through the tethers. He pulled the one trap over the fibre insulation using the string and proceeded to get underneath the trap and overturn it to get at the bait. The second trap was treated in almost the same way but not overturned and then I heard a noise and realised the trap had gone off. There he was in all his prime dead as a rat can be, but what intelligent creatures, to watch the care he took to investigate the traps was truly awe inspiring. I still wonder how it got up there.

[alan_m]

One of the crap USA TV programs on vermin extermination showed a method of catching rats in a trap where the trap wasn't baited but a nail placed a few inches above the trap was covered in peanut butter. The rat steps on the trap to reach the baited nail.

[alan_m]

The problem doesn't occur on a red hot summers day - the corpse dries out so fast that it has little time for internal fluids to putrefy.

You get the smell when the weather is mild/cool.

[ARW]

So it was the wrong August when I went into the loft?

[Roger Hayter]

Not much expertise needed. If they are bats then they are protected.

[Cynic]

I'd rather go into a loft with a rat corpse than the humongous wasps nest I encountered a few years ago. Nearly shat!

[Bazza]

The best solution is a Fenn trap and matching tunnel. Check out