How Can You Tell the Difference Between Rats and Squirrels in a Loft?

Test One: The Clock

Squirrels are diurnal. Their activity peaks in the couple of hours after sunrise and again in the late afternoon, and they are generally quiet through the middle of the night.

Rats are nocturnal, active from dusk and through the small hours. If you are being woken at three in the morning it is not squirrels; if the noise wakes you at seven and stops by ten, it very likely is.

Test Two: The Sound

Squirrels are heavy and deliberate — thumps and drags rather than patter, usually one animal moving decisively across a distance. People frequently describe something being moved around up there, and sometimes an actual rolling sound — a cached nut or a bit of debris.

Rats are lighter and faster, more scurrying than thumping, usually several animals rather than one, with audible gnawing. Rats also move up and down within walls; squirrels stay in the roof space.

Test Three: The Droppings

Squirrel droppings are rounded, barrel-shaped, roughly 8mm, and lighten as they age. They are often deposited in a rough latrine area rather than along a route.

Rat droppings are longer and tapered at the ends, around 12 to 17mm, dark and shiny when fresh, and left along runs and against joists as the animal travels. Distribution is as useful as shape: a concentrated pile suggests squirrel, a trail suggests rat.

Test Four: The Damage and the Entry Point

Squirrels cause obvious structural damage — chewed fascia and soffit, torn felt, shredded insulation gathered into a drey, gnawed cable and plastic pipe — and enter at roof level, usually at the eaves, a lifted tile, or where an extension roof meets the wall.

Rats leave smear marks along runs, tunnel through insulation rather than gathering it, and usually arrive from below via a cavity, a pipe boxing or a service riser. A smear line running down from the loft is a rat signature.

Why It Changes the Job

Squirrel work is a trapping service at £280, with legal duties attached: grey squirrels are an invasive non-native species and cannot lawfully be released once caught, and traps have to be checked at proper intervals. It is not a baiting job.

Rat work is a treatment at £190 for a flat or £240 for a house, with the follow-up included, and the survey concentrates on drains and ground-level entry rather than the roof. Getting the identification wrong wastes a visit, so if you are not sure, say what you are hearing and when, and let the technician decide.