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Monsters in the loft!


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There's something nasty living in my loft, or to be more accurate, several nasty somethings living in the space between the ceiling and the attic floor!

Whatever these beasts are (fella says mice, but to my mind they sound a good deal heavier than that, or perhaps they are just the most immensely obese mousies imaginable) they only make their presence know at night.  Lots of skittering about, scratching etc, worryingly usually directly above my bed (eeek). Oh, and they seem to have claws and they only moved in when the cold weather started.

Due to limited access (for me) to their chosen abode, persuading these unwanted visitors to leave is proving tricky.  After some conscience wrestling, I eventually resorted to rat poison, but so far it seems to have had no effect.

Anyone out there have any idea what these beasties might be, and how best to evict them?

 

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Hi Cathy

I'm sorry to be the one with the bad news, and I'll try to say this gently, but I think you will find they are RATS.  If it sounds like they are playing football up there (probably with walnuts or something like that they have found), then I'm certain of it.

In our experience rat poison did the trick but I will warn you of a terrible, sickly sweet smell that remains for some time and areas where staining came through the ceiling which smelt dreadful which we think were caused by their faeces - we had to cut out the affected bits of wall/ceiling and replaster to get rid of the smell. 

We only noticed the terrible smell after we had used the poison - maybe rats going about their normal business don't smell too much, but the terrible smell they leave after they've been poisoned will stay with me for ever.

We did not find any corpses - I think they take themselves off somewhere else to die thank goodness.

To stop it happening again you have to make sure all your pointing is sound, so they can't get up inside any cavities.

Hope this helps.  Good luck.

Epinay

 

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Welcome to the Living France Club!

Lot's of us have mice.

Some of us have moles.

The really lucky ones, have BOTH!

I'm really, really lucky!

They eat electrical cable...but otherwise, they just seem to be a bit noisy.

Got to go.  Ten cat's (useless, sauf Lucy,) to feed....

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Hurrah, at last I'm in the club!

Thanks for the advice Epinay, Hoddy & Alexis

I'm going to do 2 things now, lay off the rat poison (I think I prefer to listen to the monsters than smell them dying ) and keep my fingers crossed that maybe fella and Hoddy are right, and that they're really only meeces after all.

Oh, and do a little jig to celebrate the fact that I'm not "lucky" enough to have moles (yet)!

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Hello

Well I do hope it is just mice.  We had probs with Pinemartins in our roof space.  Blimey, what a noise they made (the weight of young children) scampering about at all hours of the night, scaring my pants off.

It was down to some very helpful forum members that I found out what they were in the end.

We had to eventually lure them away with a trail of honey, seal up the roof cavities and hey presto, all OK.

Good luck, and enjoy.

Whiskers

 

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Just edited this as I see that "Whiskers" has just posted a reply about the same animal.

 

It's possible they could be Fouines, a type of  Stone Marten, they do make lots of noise in the middle of the night (in my experience they normally start around 3am).  Maybe that you can see some evidence of where they get into the house, they like to climb up the corners of the outside walls and you can normally see dark stains there. They can get through very small holes in the gap were the wall meets the roof .

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[quote]Just edited this as I see that "Whiskers" has just posted a reply about the same animal. It's possible they could be Fouines, a type of Stone Marten, they do make lots of noise in the middle o...[/quote]

Derf, that is the first time I have seen the name Fouines. I believe that is what a roofer told us a few months back that we had in our loft in France. I could not understand what he was saying and thought I translated it to Polecat (sp?). He saw remnants (I assume droppings) and also a big area on the plasterboard ceiling of urine:  We have heard a few noises when we have been there but just assumed he may have moved on because the house was empty for almost 18 months before we bought it. We will be back in a few weeks so at least I hope that is the case
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My experience of noisy monsters in the ceiling space, usually active from about 1am onwards, has turned out to be dormice (loir in French).  Not the little curled up chaps that one thinks of from Alice in Wonderland.  This variety look rather like rats only with finer features, longer back legs, slightly furry tails and some very dashing "go-fast" white stripes along the sides of face and neck.

Here's a link to pix  http://www.btinternet.com/~lambjw/mice/facts12.htm
and http://www.glirarium.org/dormouse/photo/eliomys-quercinus.html

I always thought the clumping must come from their nipping diagonally across the roofspace, jumping on and off the ceiling joists as they went.

I periodically put poison up there, and then find the poor disintegrated things a few months later.

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Uh oh, just looked up info on Stone Martin as well as Fouines, it says that Stone Martins can be quite vicious and will eat things bigger than themselves. In addition to my big dog I have a very small dog, should I be concerned about him? I have heard of town foxes that are very hungry taking small dogs what about hungry Fouines?
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Cat

Unless it is extremely warm where you live at the moment, it is unlikely to be rats or mice as yet in your loft,  its too cold, it could be a feral cat, we have one in our loft from time to time , but if you live in a rural community and near woods is highly likely to be "edible dormice", The edible dormouse (Glis Glis), also known as the fat dormouse, is a native of continental Europe.  Do a google search on  them and you will see that they are nothing like a rat, more like a bush baby.

The edible dormouse can cause serious damage, particularly to growing timber by stripping the bark from trees and to property by gnawing electric cable in roof spaces etc. HOWEVER,   If it is a dormouse, then you should think very carefully about killing them.  I know this is France, and I am not sure what protection they have here, but in the UK,the edible dormouse is protected under Section 11(2) of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 in that certain methods of killing or taking are prohibited unless a licence has been issued by Defra.   Glis glis,  although a growing problem in the UK is on the decline in Europe and is not treated as vermin by any means.

The best thing to do with Dormice is make it too noisy for them in the day, they are nocturnal and sleep in the day, after a few bangs on the ceiling every couple of minutes, they will soon shoot off and find a quiet barn to live in.

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"Fouines" leave a very strong smell around usually from their urine and faeces. We carry out a lot of roofing works and often come across piles of faeces and urine soaked fibre glass in lofts once we have stripped off the roof. In fact, if it's not the snakes coiled up under the slates, or the hornets nests, it's the fouines that frighten me most as they charged towards you to escape!!

In fact their smell is very distinctive and characteristic. They tend to drag their prey ( birds, chickens and mice etc) into the nice warm lofts to eat it, the problem being this also rots away to an awfull mess. Common entry points are where the roof meets the top of the house wall ( at gutter level). These points can be easily blocked off with scrunched up chicken wire wedged into the gaps.¨

Paul

 

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Hi

We experienced similar noises and found they were squirrels.  They did sound as though they were walking around with hob nail boots and clawing at the wooden ceiling.  We found that when the bedroom light was on it got worse and appeared that the light was attracting them to claw more.  Luckily for us we managed to find their access hole to the roof and blocked it up.  We also bought ultrasonic pest deterrents (approx cost £14.00) from Maplin which emit an ultrasonic sound which is inaudible to human ears.  These appear to keep rodent size animals (up to cat size) away from the house.  I have been assured these do not cause any harmful affects to the offending animals. 

 

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I'll throw my two cents'worth here...

It's more likely to be cats (feral or just plain farm cats left out to find a warm spot in winter). We had a similar problem (I used to be half asleep imagining my not so friendly neighbour crawling around into the loft space... don't ask...)

We (well I advise and Tim did!) eventually covered all loft openings with netting and chicken wire (left over form a previous job, thank god), as the loft does need to be aired. No problem since...

If it is rats.mice, and you do decide to poison them, they will try and get to water before dying, so this is where you'll be likely to find the stink...

I would not advise using poison myself, traps maybe?
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[quote]"Fouines" leave a very strong smell around usually from their urine and faeces. We carry out a lot of roofing works and often come across piles of faeces and urine soaked fibre glass in lofts once we ...[/quote]

Hi!

yes I know a bit about fouines! Whilst we were in the process of renovating the roof here, we had one who used to sleep iunder there! In winter he (now why do I say he? I just always thought of it as a he! LOL!) caught a cold and as well as run about, used to sneeze loudly too! After the roof was made secure, we put sand around the house and a neighbour who could recognise a fouine's paw prints told us that he had gone!

The fouine has a very unpleasant way of eating - they kill poultry and then drink the blood and leave the meat itself that is why there was a rotten smell in the roof cavity that Paul described

I was amazed one evening when coming home late to see one of these fouines legging it over our wall! It was small badger size - chestnut brown with a pretty, white bib and a huge bushy tail almost as long as the body! Our neighbour says they are a protected species and people who get rid of them should do it on the quiet!

Hope this helps!

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My bet would be on rats.  If someone nearby keeps poultry then definitly rats.  Rats and chickens go together like peas and honey.  I have had them under the tiles and I was going to use poison until I realised that the neibours had several dogs and what would happen if the dogs ate a posioned rat?  I got a few with the standard rat trap (mind your fingers) baited with chocolate.  The rest I got with a pile of uncooked rice mixed with lots of salt.  Ratty eats this mixture and then dies of 1) dehydration or 2) exploding after taking on water.  Not nice but at least won't harm anything that then eats the corpse.  And (touch wood) the problem has gone away for quite a while.

Pierre in a very snowy Luxembourg

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[quote]My bet would be on rats. If someone nearby keeps poultry then definitly rats. Rats and chickens go together like peas and honey. I have had them under the tiles and I was going to use poison until ...[/quote]

... And when you leave the poison or whatever for ratty, you have to put it in a sort of hidden location like behind a pile of tiles. Apparently they are cute enough not to eat it if you just leave it in an obvious place!

Bonne chance!

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Ahhh, this talk of putrefying rat smell following poison takes me back to my childhood days growing up on a farm. We used to have to avoid having visitors until the smell had gone or until my dad had found the corpse.

 

A friend of mine had squirrels in her loft and the council advised her to leave a radio playing which would cause them to leave apparently. It worked but I've never asked which radio station it was that they didn't like!

Val

 

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Many, many thanks to everyone who replied with advice on my monsters.

I never realised when I came to live in France that my loft might be playing host to such a varied selection of nocturnal beasties!

The good news (I hope) is that I have not heard so much as a tiptoe of activity in the loft for the last four nights, perhaps the poison worked after all.

So now I await (with some trepidation) the fallout of my visitors demise.  No nasty pongs or staining, yet...  How long will I have to wait before I know if I have got away with it or not?

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