how can i find out what is in my house?

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we have a boxed in water pipe that runs from the loft, along the wall at ground leve through 2 rooms and then down into the kitchen

at night i keep hearing something running along inside it (well i hope its inside it)
if it was a mouse tho i dont think it would make enough noise for me to hear it but this is quite loud, it almost sounds like a cat

the pipe comes out under our sink and we have a bin there, sometimes we find that food has been taken out of the bin but not eaten and i have even tried leaving food down but its never touched :confused:

we empty the bin each night before bed now but i have still been hearing it running back and forth along the pipe

nothing has been chewed and there are no droppings so i have no idea what it could be
 
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ratogrehead1.jpg
 
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+1, at night when things are quiet they sound x10 louder than you would think or could it be a rat?

Once you have it sorted, I would put some mesh or something at the end of the pipe to stop any more getting in.
 
Soldato
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When you say you hope its inside 'it', do you mean the box or the pipe? I'm guessing the box. In this case it's HIGHLY unlikely to be a cat.

If you haven't opened it to check, you have no real way of knowing whether there are droppings and/or grease marks. The size of the droppings will tell you whether it's mice or rats (these things rarely travel in singles, sorry). Alternatively if there are grease marks rubbed onto the entry/exit holes, walls and sides of things a couple of inches off the ground then you're definitely looking at rats.

Your local council's pest control team will assess the situation for free, and depending on the council often treat for free. Public health risks (rats, bedbugs etc) are dealt with for free too, but some councils charge for mouse and flea removal.

If you want to tackle it yourself, the best bet is to go around the outside of the building and identify any holes big enough to poke the top of a biro into. Believe it or not that's all pests need to get in. So mark all messy brickwork, around pipes, vents etc. Pack ALL such holes with fine galvanised mesh (eg 'fly screen') and then fill with expanding foam.

Now you've stopped new pests getting IN, as well as stopping your current ones from getting OUT. That's actually a good thing, as you don't want them running out for fresh food and water while you're trying to eradicate them. Next place down poison and/or traps, in and around the places you've seen/heard activity, near holes and exits from pipework etc where you suspect they are travelling. (EDIT: Forgot to add...) Also make sure to completely sweep/hoover all floors to remove crumbs etc, and completely seal off any food source. That means putting cereal into Tupperware boxes, removing any standing food sources such as bags of vegetables, dog food etc, and generally ensuring that the only 'food' available to the varmints is the bait you want them to eat.

Ideally use something like 'Eradibait' as it's impossible for rodents to be immune to this, unlike conventional poisons which most rats and mice can literally live off these days without harm. Eradibait is basically super dried attractive foodstuff that swells like kitty litter inside the pest on contact with their digestive juices, and dehydrates them to death fast since rodents lack the facility to regurgitate/vomit. It's humane (much more so than poison) and very effective as well as 100% non-toxic to mammals and is even safe around human/pet foodstuffs. Any stragglers will hit the traps before the bait even kicks in. Win/win.

Keep at it until you've seen/heard nothing for a couple of weeks, then pray. Where there's one, there's usually a family - especially with mice. Good luck. :)
 
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Soldato
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Just a warning if you use poison. You will smell the decomposing corpse for a while i'm lead to believe.
There was a dead mouse at my school a few years ago, seemed to be trapped in a hole behind a radiator for several weeks until someone came to take the radiator off.... Was possibly the worst smell I had/have ever smelt.
 
Soldato
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A mouse is a mammal ...

OK OK, bad phrasing but you know what I meant. :p Rodents (as opposed to dogs, cats, humans and practically anything else you'll want to keep alive around the house) will eat up to 10% of their weight in bait/food and cannot vomit, and thus Eradibait is deadly to them. All other aforementioned creatures, including birds of prey who might pick up a 'baited' rodent, will be completely safe as the material is 100% non-toxic unless, like a rodent, you can't vomit up the deadly 10% of your weight in 'poison'.

Better? :p
 
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That's another plus for Eradibait. Because it dehydrates the rodent the corpses don't smell; they're basically dessicated like a mummy. :)

From what I've heard they decompose really quickly anyway, no matter what poison is used... Yummy conversation, this.
 
Soldato
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From what I've heard they decompose really quickly anyway, no matter what poison is used... Yummy conversation, this.

True, but as I (and anyone who controls pests and/or keeps rodent-eating reptiles) can attest, they don't half bloody stink for the duration regardless of its length. Imagine you have a dozen or so mice in your house (very plausible as that's only a pregnant female and a few babies), who are then poisoned. You wouldn't believe the whiff they can create until you've experienced it. *retch*
 
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If you think you have rats in your house then call your local council, they have some "extra" strong poison which dehydrates the rats and makes them search for water.

I had some rat issues in my house and the stuff i bought from the DIY store were working as steroids instead of killing them lol.
 
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All this talk of poisoning mice reminds me of this joke...

Three mice are hanging out and the conversation turns to boasting:

1st mouse: They tried using an old mousetrap to kill me. Not a problem. I grabbed the bar on the way down, benchpressed it a few times just for some light exercise and strolled off with the food.

2nd mouse: Yeah, they tried that with me too. Then they put down poison. So I sat there right in front of them and ate the poison, just to freak them out. It was tasty. I'm too hard for poison to bother me.

The third mouse quietly gets up and starts striding off. He casually turns to the others and says "I'd love to stay and chat, but the cat's waiting. She can't get enough of sex with me."
 
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