only one room on ground floor has floor boards coz theres a small ice room below. Ive never been down there as my dining room is above. Every night I hear a creature in the ice room, it scratches floor boards & tumbles around. It cant be rats as it seems solitary. I cant work out how it gets in or what it is; rats arent solitary either. Any idea what it is?
Could be a rat (trust me, they will get in anywhere and you can easily have a solitary female looking for a nest to have babies), a mouse, a bird.
My guess is a mouse. Mice can get in a pencil sized hole, but can sound like a herd of elephants when everything is quiet. I'd suggest dealing with it before you have lots of the little ***.
If it's a light scratching sound it could be a mouse but if it sounds like it's tumbling around, it is probably a rat (they can sound like a herd of elephants)
Mice can sound enormous. When we first moved in here we had mice (they seemed to decide to leave on introduction of the cat). It sounded massive but it was just mice.
Although the cat is no use - he tries to bring live squirrels, stoats and rabbits in the house so who know what is here now.
And as for the damn jackdaws and pigeons on the chimneys and apex of the roof - my goodness, it sounds like I have a whole marching band up there. The sparrowhawk is doing its bit with taking the pigeons though.
My cousin had a rat in her loft. It sounded like it was wearing pit boots as it was running around - a real thumper. It was coming up through the cavity wall space from the garage. It used to sharpen it's teeth on the roof frame. A friend of mine managed to catch it in a cage and took it up the field to use as target practice.
I cant get a camera down there as yould have to remove furniture, fitted carpet & floorboards or the fitted toilet over acess. 40y on & still cant work out whats down there. No rats or mice inside this house. Its more noisy in winter.