As the mornings turn colder across Nottinghamshire, the phones start ringing with a very particular kind of call: scratching and thumping in the loft, usually just after dawn or just before dusk. In Hucknall, Ravenshead, Kimberley, Eastwood and Nuthall, the culprit is almost always the same animal — the grey squirrel — and early September is exactly when they start looking for somewhere warm and dry to spend the winter.
Why this is a bigger problem here than in most of Nottingham
Hucknall and Ravenshead sit right on the edge of Sherwood Forest and the wider Sherwood heathland, so there’s no shortage of mature oak, beech and pine on the doorstep — and no shortage of squirrels looking for a step up from a tree hollow to a proper loft. Kimberley, Eastwood and Nuthall have their own belt of woodland and hedgerow running along the old colliery and railway lines, which does exactly the same job of funnelling wildlife toward the houses backing onto it. If your roofline has an overhanging branch within a few feet of it, you’ve effectively built a bridge.
What to look and listen for
Grey squirrels are mostly active around sunrise and sunset, so that’s when you’ll hear them — a distinct scratching, running, or rolling sound directly overhead, different from the lighter scuttle of mice or the intermittent scratching of birds. Other signs include:
- Gnaw marks around soffits, fascias, or gaps where the roofline meets the wall
- Torn or flattened loft insulation, sometimes gathered into a nest (a “drey”)
- Chewed electrical cabling in the loft space — a genuine fire risk, not just cosmetic damage
- A stale, musky smell if a squirrel has been resident for a while
- Debris such as leaves, twigs, and stripped bark near the entry point
Why DIY approaches usually fall short
A lot of homeowners try blocking the entry hole straight away, which can trap an animal inside — leading to a far worse problem, and a smell that takes weeks to fully clear. Others buy a cage trap online without knowing the law: grey squirrels are a non-native invasive species in the UK, and under the Invasive Alien Species legislation it is illegal to release a trapped grey squirrel back into the wild. If you trap one yourself, you are legally required to have it humanely dispatched, which understandably isn’t something most people want to deal with in their own garden.
There’s also the structural side. A squirrel that’s been in a loft for even a few weeks can strip enough insulation to affect your heating bills, and chewed wiring is one of the more common causes of loft fires that gets missed until it’s too late. Finding and permanently sealing every possible re-entry point on a roof also takes a trained eye — squirrels can exploit gaps as small as 4cm, and they will keep testing the same weak spots for months if they’re not properly closed off.
How we handle it
Our approach for squirrel call-outs in Hucknall, Ravenshead, Kimberley, Eastwood and Nuthall is to inspect the full roofline first, not just the loft hatch — that’s where most people miss the actual entry point. We identify every access route, remove the animal(s) humanely and in line with current legislation, clear out damaged insulation and nesting material, and then proof the property properly: mesh over gaps, capped soil pipes, and any overhanging branches flagged for trimming back. That last part matters more here than almost anywhere else in Nottingham, simply because of how close the tree cover sits to so many roofs.
If you’ve heard scratching in the loft over the last week or two, it’s worth getting it looked at now rather than in November, when a single squirrel can have brought in a full winter’s worth of nesting material and the damage is harder to reverse.
Get in touch
If you’re in Hucknall, Ravenshead, Kimberley, Eastwood, Nuthall or anywhere else across Nottingham and you think you’ve got squirrels — or any other pest — in the loft, give us a call on 0742 984 9483 or visit nottinghampest.co.uk to book an inspection.
