General Chat

OMG I think we've got uninvited guests in the attic.. or should I say Loft?
Just been hearing scratching and running across the boards then a loud screech.. ooer
Don't like it.............

Send for ghost busters......just incase lol

Send Monty up there when he gets home
lol

Better not be ghosties... I'd have to call the vicar..

Yea think he better cal at Wickes for some bait and traps on his way home eh??
You listening Monty??.

its spring, what happens, the birds get frisky, start looking for nesting places, you can bet your life its sparrows or starlings in your loft dear.

well its unlikely to be Piranha.....

not so sure Bob, its that damp up there you need a rubber suit on.

Put yout head up and make a noise like a piece of cheese, if you get eaten... its mice pmsl.

I remember my Dad telling one of my sons. ..If they wanted to catch a rabbit, they had to lye in the grass and make a noise like a carrot. When the rabbit went to eat them they had to grab it. The reply was what kind of noise do carrots make Grandad lol

We have squirrels. I feed them at my second-floor office window, then they go next door to our house and run riot in the attic.

Actually, the attic is the bedroom -- I converted it 15 years ago, it being the main reason I'd bought this old house, and I realized it had been 10 years and I had done nothing with it. The third half-storey has a barn roof so it's very roomy. But down both sides there is space in behind where a wall has been dropped to square it off, about 3 feet high, with the space behind it running the depth of the house, about 35 feet. As do the squirrels. Run the depth of the house. Repeatedly.

My sister has mice in the attic of her 10-yr-old house. She no longer has an overhead light in her fancy en suite bathroom. If the squirrels get busy in mine, we'll have no heat on the third floor, because that's where the wiring for the electric baseboard heaters runs ...

I don't want to think what it will cost if we decide to get the pros in to seal it up, which we would have to do.

Sometimes I wish we lived in England. When they got squirrels in their lofts on Coronation Street, they all just called the council!

It could be squirrels nesting as they love living in lofts,amd they do make a racket when they run around.

Janey,
The councils don't gert rid of Mice nevr mind Squirrels.

Everyone has to get rid of the vermin themselves.

Ah, I figured. ;)

I just like the "call the council!" mentality. It's so refreshingly different from the US mentality of everybody always being afraid that if there's any actual public service being provided, somebody will get something they're not getting, so everyone for themself and devil take the hindmost.

Janey, out of interest I assume that yous squirrels are grey squirrels?

Sounds like squirrels to me - they screech at eachother. If so, you should try and get rid of them because they can cause havoc chewing through stuff, including wiring. Also, they will breed and you'll be overrun with them. Don't want to scare you, but I had a friend who found rats in her loft! The council will come and deal with those for free.

Ann - black and grey. I have two blacks and one grey that come to the window daily for a handout. (We had loads more squirrels up to 5 years ago when the enormous soft maple in the next yard over was executed.) The blacks tend to intimidate the greys - the greys I've had in other years were smaller, although this grey is a biggie. The ratio of black to grey most places hereabouts would be 10 or 20 to 1, I'd guess.

The blacks are more aggressive than the greys - and of course far more aggressive than the reds - and so are more easily tamed. For several years I had my buddy Rat Ear, who had no doubt that my casa was his casa, and hung out in my dining room scrounging for peanuts when I was working there.

The squirrels had excavated an opening in the sliding fibreglas screen door at the back. Then one night I heard Riiiip, and found that a raccoon had just grabbed a corner of the opening in the screen and turned it into a good-sized doorway, allowing the family easy access thereafter to the cat food in the kitchen. Urban wildlife. At least we don't have coyotes yet, but farther from city centres in Ontario, they are getting them.

The red squirrels disappeared from Ontario a couple of decades ago, at least. When I was a kid c1960, the major downtown park in London, in southern Ontario (Victoria Park, of course!), was full of reds. I can't even think of when I last saw one. My mum actually seems to have a couple this year, where she's lived north of Toronto for about 10 years and never seen them before. She's being careful to get them their share of peanuts.


So Patricia, if you have red squirrels in your attic, you should be nice to them, because they're going to be endangered before long!

they are endangered in UK although we are gradually getting them back. It is the greys that have taken over from the reds. We too have black squirrels, the only place I have seen them is Letchworth in Hertfordshire. Greys are considered vermin here and it is not illegal to kill them. If you capture one you are not allowed to release it anywhere.

squirrels

natures little speed bumps lol

rats we had them last year ...took about 8 months to get rid!!!

stray had a rat in her garden
it was just visiting


but it die with a massive headache

I know about the plight of your reds there -- and the effort to eradicate the blacks/greys (that the Victorian nincompoop imported). The tails of my blacks/greys were once requested by that well-known critter-hater hereabouts so he could claim the bounty. ;)

I don't know what happened in North America - how come the reds disappeared so suddenly. I'm sure the blacks and greys (and all the variations, there are lots among the greys) are native here. Why they suddenly ousted the reds in the late 20th century - ? Maybe they just did better at living in cities.

Anyhow I agree with the diagnosis -- squirrels are notorious screechers, so that's likely what Patricia's got!

WOW this turned out to be a good thread!!

Janey you do make me smile...Could be squirrels as I used to see one climbing along the fence.. Something has been throwing the mortar out the roof gulley down onto the patio as well...
Mont's not having any of it he says it's the birds on the roof..
Excuse me MR but I do know the difference in the noises... LOL

Well we're just going to visit my Mum and taking our two eldest Grandkids to see Grandma..
Catch you all later if I don't drown in all the flipping rain... oh to live somewhere nice and sunny and no noisy critters!
Actually you've all made me smile especially rat with a headache Joy! :o))))
BBL
Tricia LWD xxxx