What’s That Noise in Your Loft?

The single best clue

What Time of Day Is It?

Before anything else: when do you hear it?

Only after dark, and it stops around dawn. That is a rodent. Mice and rats are nocturnal, and the pattern is usually activity from dusk, a quiet middle of the night, then a second burst before it gets light.

Daytime, especially early morning and late afternoon. That is a grey squirrel. Squirrels are active in daylight and sleep at night, which is the exact opposite of a rodent and the reason this one question answers most of the call.

Daytime, and it is more scuffling and cheeping than running. Birds, usually in the eaves rather than the loft proper, and usually in spring.

People get this right far more often than they expect. If you are lying awake at two in the morning listening to it, you have already ruled out squirrels.

Photographs on this page are for illustration purposes only.

Weight

Light and Quick, or Heavy and Deliberate

The second clue is how heavy it sounds.

A mouse is barely audible — a light, fast skittering, often described as something being dragged, because it usually is: nesting material being moved. You hear it through a ceiling more than you hear it in the loft.

A rat sounds like an animal. Heavier footfall, slower, with pauses. If someone says it sounds like something is walking about up there, it is generally not a mouse.

A squirrel sounds heavier again and is unmistakably energetic — bounding, rolling, and sometimes a distinct thump. People often describe a squirrel as sounding far too big for the space.

What you find

Go Up With a Torch, Not a Bin Bag

If you can get into the loft safely, look rather than tidy. What is up there is evidence and it is worth leaving in place until someone has seen it.

• Droppings along a joist — small, dark and scattered means mice; larger and grouped means rats.
• Runs pressed through the insulation — a clear flattened path tells you the route, which is what the proofing will follow.
• Stripped cable or gnawed timber — both rodents and squirrels do this. It is the reason a loft noise is worth acting on rather than living with.
• A drey, or shredded material in a heap — squirrels build substantially. It looks like a nest because it is one.
• Daylight at the eaves — stand in the dark and look towards the edges. Any light you can see is a gap something can use.

Why it matters

The Noise Is Not the Problem

The noise is what you notice. The reason to deal with it is the wiring, the insulation and the water tank.

Rodents and squirrels both have continuously growing incisors and both gnaw to manage them, which is why cable sheathing, plastic pipe and timber all get chewed regardless of whether the animal wants to eat them. Insulation gets flattened and fouled, which costs you heating. And whatever got in is going to keep getting in until the way it used is closed.

Grey squirrels are also a legal question rather than just a practical one, which is covered on the squirrel page — they cannot lawfully be caught and released.

Short answers

Questions, Briefly

Where to go next

The Pages That Answer This