Mice or rats in loft

Well, I use poison and you are right they pong a bit and there are flies, friends of ours use traps and winkle their little crushed bodies out of them and reuse them.........

We tried the humane traps and one morning there were 6 mice in there, DH took them 5 miles away and released them, 2 days later we caught, yep, you’ve guessed it another 5.
I also have the plug in things, they don’t work either.

This summer we are going around the outside of the house trying to stop up all the tiny gaps to try prevention rather than cure, but we live in the countryside and all our neighbours are in the same boat.

I just lay in bed in the Autumn listening to them all above my head moving back in and dragging their little suitcases across the floor ready to settle in for the Winter.

We’ve lived here now for 20 years, we never had mice in any of our ‘town’ houses, so I guess we just live with it, I dread to think what they might be doing to the wiring though.

We live in quite a rural area too, but this is the first time we’ve had a problem - well, it’s the first time I’ve heard them! I’m hoping the contractor can give us an idea where they’re getting in, so we can try and prevent it again, as I can’t see where.

I’ve been ‘googling’ which isn’t always the best idea, and people with rats have said the smell and flies are appalling and it lasts months. It doesn’t sound as though humane traps are very effective. I can’t get in the loft myself either, (too decrepit).

I may be wrong about this, Gma29, but I think whoever comes to put down the poison will do a repeat visit to check for success and therefore remove any dead rats they find. I'm sure I saw this happen on one of those tv programmes some years ago, when the council came to deal with a rat problem in someone's house. It took several visits, I believe. I would ask them when they come if they do this, explaining that you can't get in the loft yourself to check. Good luck.

As the mice often die under insulation materials, there is no way that a contractor would spend much of his/ her time looking for an unknown number of dead bodies.
Most new poisons mummify the bodies, in theory this means that the smell isnt too bad and only lasts for a few hours, unless it dies next to a heating pipe!
I think if you have rats in the loft then you have a much bigger problem than if it’s mice.

Have always used poison in my various rented hovels over the years and never had a problem.

The contractor who came for the rats told me the warfarin makes them head to a water source so as long as their water source is not in the walls, you should be okay. We never came across any rats or a smell.

They do come back for repeat visits to check for success and bodies.

Get a contractor in ASAP. Squirrels? The chew and cause real damage

Thank you. Contractor appointment is booked. They do come back for a return visit after laying poison, (I asked) but only remove what they can see. The lady I spoke to said they obviously have no control over where the animals die, and they do tend to “tuck themselves away” as she reassuringly put it. I’m really hoping it isn’t rats ?? It sounds a bit lightweight up there to be squirrels, but I don’t know....

I don’t know about country rats, but rats in my part of the world are signifcantly larger than squirrels.

Might just be mice. The contractors will take care of it, best not to worry if you can avoid it

Old fashioned mousetraps baited with dark chocolate. We caught 13 mice in our loft, they were getting into the cavity through the weep holes between the bricks where the builders had omitted to put in the plastic grilles.

I am just so stressed out over the whole thing, it’s making me feel ill. The thought of rotting smells and flies... Just going to have to trust the contractor to sort it.

My nephew had rats in the roof of his farm in South Africa. He put a snake up there and that sorted them out!!

I had them in my roof in Kenya, 50 years ago. Two cats kept them at bay. But when I went off on a camping trip and sent the cats to a cattery, there was mayhem to come home to. They were a small type of rat, but rats nevertheless and it's quite scary when you open a drawer and a rat jumps out. I went straight away and picked up the cats and everything in sight was disinfected or burnt.

menopaws that’s made me feel decidedly goosebumpy! ??

annodomini I haven’t seen anything, but the noise overhead when I’m trying to sleep is bad enough - a vivid imagination isn’t the best nightcap

I hope it is mice, if they get under the insulation and scurry across the ceiling board they sound enormous, rats are a real problem but unless you are adjoining some kind of derelict building are unlikely. For mice just use poison or bait a few traps they will mummify after a week or two.
We did find a plug in deterrent worked in our bungalow, it also keeps spiders away too, so worth trying

We used cotton wool balls soaked in peppermint oil and hung around the loft - Mickey and his mates moved out pronto! We refresh every three months or so and haven’t seen hide nor hair of any for at least 18 months.

We checked our traps at least 3 times a week and emptied them and reset them, after catching 12 and then nothing for weeks, I went up in the loft and the smell was awful, one trap had caught a mouse which was putrifying, so, I wouldn't leave them up there to mummify, you'd never get rid of the smell. I also now have a plug in that sends an electrical pulse around the wiring in the house that mice don't like. It doesn't work on spiders though.

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Wasting your time really ByronGarrett
Reported.

cat/from good hunter bloodlines

They are all disgusting creatures with their weak bladders and revolting habits! If you are unable to access the loft it is always best to get in the experts. Hope they sort it out for you very quickly. Gma29

There was a dreadful smell emanating from a loft in a previous house and, although we knew it was a dead mouse and searched repeatedly, we just could not find it until the day we moved out. Fortunately the smell dissipated after about a fortnight. We had a similar thing in the kitchen but thankfully found it fairly quickly under the kitchen units. We always keep mouse traps baited and in place and regularly check them all but it is the ones which die from natural causes or poisons which prove tricky to find.
We are currently battling rats which seem only to be outside and are taking the bait which we have secreted in a length of drainpipe on the patio. Bait well and truly nibbled and no signs or smells of rats so far. 'They' seem to think none of us are more than 20' from a rat!

Are you sure its not pigeons? I had a pair in the loft who got in because a brick under the eaves had dropped out. They flew away when the builder went up so he just had to clean up and block the hole thankfully.

seasider we do have pigeons in the garden, but I really don’t know what it is. It would be a relief if it was birds!

We live in an old cottage and have had this problem over the years. Used poison in the loft to get rid of them previously. However last year in the autumn when they start coming in we've used those plug in electronic devices Pestbye. They're incredibly effective and we haven't had a problem since. The key thing is that you need to get them as close to the mice as possible, there are now battery ones that you can put in the loft, so no plug is needed. We scatter about four over the bedrooms and roof. So much better than poison - it just seems to deter them and they go.