scraping/scratching and tapping noises

[JO-COBURN]

hello everyone

be gentle its my first post don't know where to post so here goes

For 2 nights there have been scraping sounds upstairs in a cupboard and around/undefloor boards. Have looked in the cupboard no large moth trying to get out no signs of droppings . What do i look for insects or rodents very confused, the sound follows the path of electrical cables or central heating pipes.Mouse trap or fly paper ? Anyone got any ideas ?

Mods if this is wrong place can you move this.

thankyou

 

[Deluks]

Could be insect life munching through your timbers, no idea what woodworm sounds like but apparently can be quite loud. Wasps are bloody noisy when they scoff away at my fence.
I get wierd noises at night, which I believe is from expansion/contraction of copper pipes feeding the rads. See if the sounds coincide with the programming of your c.h.
Or it might just be that you can only hear the sounds at night cos there's less background noise to mask it.

Ultimately you might have to lift up a few floorboards and check for fresh dust or holes in your joists. If you got the worm then you'll have to get it sorted asap.

 

[JohnD]

I don't believe you can hear woodworm.

Death watch beetle is a tapping noise

Most likely you have mice

Get a tub of bait from your hardware store (you can get a plastic bottle rather like a washing-up liquid bottle, better value than the little packets) and some sort of small dish (I use flower-pot saucers)

then put a layer of the grains flat into each dish (so you can see if any has been taken) and put as many as you can in places where the mice might be. Look at them daily and see if the grains go. If so top then up and keep topping up until they don't go any more.

Look at your food cupboards and put dry stores like biscuits, cornflakes, flour, packet soups into containers such as biscuit tins. Clean up any crumbs. Go right to the back of all cupbards and look under the kitchen cabinets. If you have pets or children, put bait out of their reach, and clean up the floor of any petfood and put away their feeding bowls overnight.

If you have any leaky pipes, ponds, dripping overflows etc you might have rats, which like to live near water.

If anyone has a bird-table, it is in fact a rat-table that birds sometimes steal food from.

Go round the house looking for any cracks, gaps or holes, including broken air bricks or gaps round pipes or drains, where they might be getting in, and block them.

If the bait doesn't go down you haven't got mice or rats and will have to take up some floorboards to have a look.

 

[breezer]

no dont do that, mouse eats it, goes away and dies slowly, then rots and smells and flies come for the dinner.

get a mouse trap, g'teed to work

 

[Symptoms]

Mice, squirrels or rats (you're unlikely to get all three together) is the probable cause if you've only noticed it recently; they do often come indoors looking to lay-up 'cos of the cold. Usual access to loft space is via overhanging trees and in through the eaves, or more often via a rotted-out gap below the hip irons (the curly metal things at the bottom corners of hipped roofs). Mice can gain access through a hole that you can push a pencil through, so the clay airbricks are a common entry point; don't seal these off with a brick/slab as it's important for the air to flow. You need to get some perforated zinc (lots of small holes) and make covers for the airbricks.

Grannies old mouse traps do work if they are baited properly (with chocolate or a peanut, not cheese! - tie the bait on with sewing thread otherwise our nimble friends will nick the bait without triggering the trap).

Bigger pests - just scale-up the deterrent. A rat trap is just a bigger mouse trap or you could get a cage trap; your problem with a cage is what to do with the live rat (or squirrel) as you aren't allowed to release them. Air rifle is the way to go.