we have been hearing something in the attic lately. sounds bigger than a mouse. we only hear it at night. i went all around the perimeter and can't find any signs of entry. house is a 1 story brick ranch with a ridge vent and gable vents. my question is what would be coming in the attic on a 20 degree night? do squirrels move at night? we got schit tons around here. chipmunks? lots of them too.

Rats, I've had them in my attic 3 times during winter.

Flying squirrel!

Do you have vinyl siding?

Had the biggest damn squirrel had ever seen in the attic above the garage. Tore down all the insulation two feet up the wall for bedding.

Pellet shot him when he charged me.

My wife claims that I have bats in my belfry.

He did say 1 story brick ranch.

The fox squirrel in the neighborhood makes his rounds first thing in the morning. The decon is gone, but the squirrel was begging for more yesterday.
I finally found rat traps for sale at Menards. Nowhere else.
One went off this evening. Just a common wren up off the ground on the back porch. Oh well.....
I finally heard from him at night a couple days ago. He got into attic insulation. Tomorrow night is supposed to be single digits so I guess he's going to be back. I suspect if you hear crewing or scampering it's a squirrel. They can jump from a chair or grill up to your eaves and enter where coons and possums can't.

If you find the big rat traps, bait a few with peanut butter. I expect to get mine this weekend. Let me know if it works for you, or whatever method you choose.

only on two bump-outs on the front of the house. the rest is solid brick.

Could be a coon. They love attics. Wreak havoc in them.

gos up derr

i see no way a coon could get in. i went all around the outside and there is no hole that big. the only gaps are the vents which have screen over them and the tiny ones along the soffit. no trees near the house but a couple of rhododendrons. i guess i will see if i can find some rat traps tomorrow. my wife is driving me nuts with this.

i do have an old cemetery about 50 foot from the house.

Shoot a shotgun towards the noises at night.

Little mud and tape and you can have the holes patched right up.
Where I am leaning. If no holes it has to be spooks.

Yep, ghosts for certain.

If they stay in the attic it shouldn't be an issue.

thats what i say. tell it to my wife.

i would but all my guns are locked up in my cannon safe that i can't open

Squirrels will make all kinds of racket at night.

+1 They're nocturnal, small and can squeeze through a small opening.

Good place for em!🤣🤣🤣🤣

Flying Squirrel. Get him out now he can create a mess. He will go in one area and do his business and not change. They can squeeze thru the smallest cracks.

Get a bar of rat poison, nail it to a piece of 2×4 and set it up there.

This!

Flying squirrels are very common but they are very nocturnal so people rarely see them. They are not very active in the cold (under 20 degrees) but they do move around some. I have a tray feeder attached to a tree that I toss some bird seed in at dark. The squirrels have the routine down and one can hear them sail in before I get 30' away. When full dark I flip on a flood light and watch them chase each other around and catch glimpses as the squirrels glide to and from the feeder.

Flying squirrels do not need much of a hole as they aren't much bigger than a chipmunk. I use bluebird houses as nest boxes for flying squirrels. They work well but one has to be diligent kicking out birds, red squirrels, and the occasional chipmunk.

Wife's grandma haf a chipmunk getting in the basement, acorns everywhere but they kept telling me wind was blowing em in.

Not sure where the fugging wind was blowing in from but I finally spied that little bastard when we were cleaning the house out getting ready to sell.

New owners have a pet chipmunk!🤣🤣

LOL….hopefully you left his stash alone.

I just went through the same thing. I don't know what I had up there but I did some internet searching and figured it might be roof rats.

Apparently there is a breed of rat that has been pushing its territory north and they exclusively like to crawl up to the inside of your attic and make a nest. They get behind your siding or go up drains and get in vents, they are even known to drop down out of trees on your roof. I read that they can squeeze through a nickel size opening. They do not like basements or any kind of moisture or dirt. They exclusively go for high dry places. Fuggers make a lot of noise too, just like rem141r said.

We'd been hearing the noises so I was online and I made the mistake of telling my wife that there was something called roof rats and at the first mention of the word rat she wanted to call every exterminator in the county. Anyways, a little searching and I found a product at the local hardware store. I bought the biggest tub they had for about $23.00 which was probably 4X's as much as I needed LOL.

If you look close you can see the words "roof rats" right under the word "Kills" and to the left of the number 64 on the tub it came in. I went up in the attic and threw out a half a bucket of this stuff all around the edges in the insulation. That night we heard about 10% of what we had been hearing, the next night and for the last three weeks we have not heard a peep.

I just have my fingers crossed that we don't get a stinky odor when the weather warms up.

friggen roof rats? wtf. guess i'll head to tractor supply tomorrow and see what they have. i am not telling my wife we have rats. we had rats about 20 years ago outside but i nuked them fuggers and haven't seen any sign since. and i live in semi-country, not what you would call rat country. no garbage left around, etc. i run a pretty clean ship.

Angveirt Mice Repellent Battery Operated Ultrasonic Mouse Repellent RV Rodent Repellent for Car Engines Rat Deterrent Squirrel Repeller for House Indoor Home Defense Pest Control, 2 Pack

Amazon. Two for $55. They work.

As soon as I ran out of Decon, I remembered Warfarin was available for such an occasion. Instead, I decided to find rat traps. Medical advances are amazing. They found another use for Warfarin after all of these years of cows bleeding to death and rat poison....heart medication.

one of my Grandmas friends had a raccoon get inside of her attic several years ago, what a horrible mess it made before they got rid of it

These aren't the bigger Norway rats you think of in like New York City sewers, they are bigger than mice but not huge. I'm an effing expert now.

I had tried traps, could not catch a thing with peanut butter.

Those are what I had. If you can't find them when they die house will stink for a couple of weeks, caught a few in traps.

It’s bats.

I think that they are hunkered down for the winter. They won't want to get out of bed/ caves until spring. Good guess though.

Roof rats are a grey subspecies of the black rat, about half the size of a brown rat. They call them roof rats because they climb, these are far and away the commonest rat in South Texas.

I wouldn’t use bait, too much chance of the dead ones stinking up the house. Since I have small dogs I hesitate to use a sprung trap, glue traps work well, but what ever trap you use tie it off with a string to something to prevent the rat from dragging it off.

Never had any luck with peanut butter, greasy meat baits like bacon or sausage work well.