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Scratching in the Walls and Ceiling at Night
The noise is the most useful diagnostic you have, and most people describe it well enough over the phone for us to know where to start.
What mouse noise sounds like
Light, quick, scurrying, and intermittent — a few seconds of movement, a pause, then more. People describe it as something small running, or as a faint scratching and scrabbling.
Alongside the running there is often gnawing: a slow, deliberate, rhythmic grating. That is teeth on timber, plastic or cable, and it carries a long way through a ceiling.
If what you hear is heavy, slow, and sounds like something with weight moving about — the kind of noise that makes people say it sounded like a person in the loft — that is a rat, and it is a different job.
Photographs on this page are for illustration purposes only.
Why it is always the same time
Mice are mostly nocturnal and they are responding to the house going quiet rather than to the clock. The usual pattern is a burst shortly after everyone settles, another in the small hours, and one around dawn. If you have noticed it is always about half an hour after you go to bed, that is exactly what is happening.
Hearing them in daylight, or seeing one out in the open in the afternoon, generally means the population has grown enough that the confident ones are pushing the timid ones out into less safe hours. It is a rough indicator of scale rather than anything sinister.
Why the noise moves around
Because the cavity does. A cavity wall is supposed to be closed at the eaves and stopped at the base, but in a great many houses it is not, and where it is left open a mouse inside it can travel from the kitchen skirting to a first-floor ceiling without ever crossing a room.
The same is true of a suspended timber ground floor, whose void runs under every downstairs room, and of the void between a ceiling and the floor above.
So if the noise turns up in unrelated places and the droppings do too, that is not several problems. It is one population in the fabric of the house, and the proofing goes in at the ends of those voids rather than where you last heard something.
What to tell us
Four things, and they shape the whole visit.
- Where. Which room, and whether it is above the ceiling, in the wall, or under the floor.
- When. What time, and whether it is the same time each night.
- What kind. Running, scratching, or the slow grating of gnawing.
- How heavy. Light and scurrying, or something with weight to it.
That is usually enough for us to say which void is involved and where to start looking, before anyone has opened a loft hatch.
Before you book
Short Answers
Could it be birds or squirrels rather than mice?
It could. Birds in a soffit are active at first light and stop by mid-morning. Squirrels are daytime, much heavier, and often sound like something rolling or dragging. Mice are nocturnal, light and scurrying. Tell us the timing and the weight and we can usually narrow it down on the phone.
Is gnawing in the loft actually dangerous?
Damaged insulation on a live cable is a fault worth taking seriously, and it is the main reason not to leave a loft problem over winter. If you can hear a slow grating noise not running, treat it as the urgent version.
Tell Us Where You Are Finding Them
Where the droppings are, where you hear them at night, whether anything has been gnawed, and whether it is a home or a business.
Get in touch
Book a Mice Control Visit
Tell us where you are finding droppings, where you hear them, and whether it is a home or a business. If anything has been gnawed, say what and where — it tells us which route they are using.
- Phone
- 01908 465226
- Message us on WhatsApp
- sales@miltonkeynespestcontroller.co.uk
- Milton Keynes Pest Controller Service
- Address
- South Row
Milton Keynes
MK9 3DQ - Covering
- Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire and parts of Hertfordshire