Halloween brings its own cast of creatures to the door this week, but across Gedling, Netherfield, Carlton, Sherwood, Arnold and Woodthorpe the real seasonal visitors are a lot quieter, and considerably less willing to leave once they have let themselves in. As the clocks have gone back and the nights have turned properly cold, grey squirrels and house mice are both hunting for somewhere warm and dry to see out the winter, and for plenty of households across these NG4 and NG5 postcodes that somewhere turns out to be the loft, the cavity wall, or the gap behind the kitchen units.
Squirrels finding their way into Gedling, Netherfield and Carlton lofts
The mature trees around Gedling Country Park and along the wooded slopes down to the River Trent at Netherfield are exactly the kind of territory grey squirrels favour for building their nests, or dens, in the branches. Once the weather turns, though, a tree-top den stops being good enough, and a dry loft void starts to look a lot more appealing. Older semis and terraces along Carlton Hill and the streets backing onto Gedling’s green spaces are particularly exposed, because mature gardens and overhanging branches give squirrels an easy route from the tree canopy straight onto the roofline. From there it only takes a weak soffit, a lifted tile, or a gap where a roofline has settled over the years for a squirrel to get into the loft itself.
Once inside, squirrels do a lot more damage than their size suggests. They will strip insulation for nesting material, gnaw on roof timbers and electrical cabling (a genuine fire risk), and a mother squirrel with a litter in your loft can mean weeks of scratching and thumping overhead before she moves them on.
Mice settling in across Sherwood, Arnold and Woodthorpe
Further over, it is house mice causing most of the calls in Sherwood, Arnold and Woodthorpe. The older terraced housing around Sherwood’s Mansfield Road shops, and the Victorian and 1930s semis backing onto Woodthorpe Grange Park and the streets off Arnold’s Front Street, all share the same weakness: original brickwork with age-widened mortar joints, airbricks that have never been fitted with mesh, and suspended timber floors with plenty of voids underneath. A house mouse can squeeze through a gap the width of a pencil, so draught-proofing done for comfort reasons often doubles up as the first line of defence without anyone realising it.
The giveaway signs are usually small and easy to miss at first: a scratching noise behind the skirting at night, a faint ammonia smell in a cupboard, or a packet of pasta or bird seed that has clearly been got into. By the time droppings are showing up on worktops, a single mouse has usually already become a breeding pair, and numbers build quickly from there over winter.
Squirrel or mouse? How to tell the difference
- Noise and timing: squirrels are bold and move about during the day as well as at night, with heavier scratching, bumping and rolling sounds directly overhead in the loft; mice are almost always after dark, and the noise is a lighter scurrying or scratching behind walls, under floors or inside kitchen units rather than above your head.
- Droppings: squirrel droppings are roughly the size of a large grain of rice and tend to be scattered in the loft itself; mouse droppings are much smaller, dark, and show up in neat little piles near food sources, along skirting boards or inside drawers.
- Damage: squirrels chew into roof timbers, soffits and cabling, and will tear up loft insulation for nesting; mice leave small gnaw marks on food packaging, skirting and furniture edges, and shredded paper or fabric used as nesting material tucked into corners.
- Entry points: squirrels exploit weak points up high, roofline, soffits, gaps where a tile has slipped; mice come in low, through airbrick gaps, gaps around pipework under sinks, and worn thresholds at external doors.
Why it is worth sorting now, before winter properly sets in
Both of these get harder, not easier, to deal with the longer they are left. A squirrel in the loft right now is quite possibly scouting out a winter base before settling a litter in there come spring, and a handful of mice finding their way in this week can easily be a far bigger problem by Christmas. Dealing with it now, while numbers are still low and before the coldest weather really bites, is always the simpler and cheaper job.
If you are hearing movement in the loft, finding droppings, or just want someone to check your home over before winter, NestBusters covers Gedling, Netherfield, Carlton, Sherwood, Arnold, Woodthorpe and the whole of Nottingham, with treatments starting from £80. Give us a call on 0742 984 9483 or get in touch via nottinghampest.co.uk to book a visit.
