Mice or rats?

[CathyA]

We always occasionally have mice in our big crawl space. Lately, DH has been setting traps right inside the "window" from our basement to the crawl space. But........all of them get sprung, without catching the mice. Now we're hearing loud gnawing in the walls, going quickly to other areas. Do you think this might be a rat? Are they just plain louder? DH is going to put a rat trap down there tomorrow. Gosh, I hate killing things, but dang, I don't want our house to burn down (or get filled with baby mice/rats and their gallons of poop.)
It's almost impossible to keep little rodents out of the house.

[Float On]

I can tell you my experience.
Little field rats (actually kind of cute, light brown and white belly) got into our crawl space and then ate into the flex tube duct work. One died. Oh the smell. $800 to get all our duct work replaced. And then they came back....and did it again. 2nd time I bought the supplies myself and replaced all the duct work for around $300 (and my duct work held up better plus we hired a guy to fill in all the little cracks and spots where we thought they might be crawling under the house. Haven't had any field rats since and that's been 16 years.

[CathyA]

Oh Float On.......that's awful! It's disconcerting that I've heard noises through both of the vents in the bedroom. Gosh, what a mess (and expense) that would be!
What kind of person did you hire to fill in all the cracks in the crawlspace? DH almost refuses to go into the crawl space anymore. We have a white radon barrier throughout the entire crawlspace.........which really shows up all the mouse poop. You can imagine what he has to crawl through. Sure wish it was all a basement instead!

[CathyA]

DH came home early from work today to deal with the problem. Last night something very loud was chewing like crazy under the bedroom. DH had set a rat trap, because the sound was too loud for a mouse. Well.........he caught a red squirrel! Has to be a fairly big opening to let one of those guys in............at least bigger than a mouse would need. Darn. Those little guys are cute. I felt really bad, but we just can't have any kind of rodent living there. DH found a big nest in the crawl space close to where the water lines come into the house (2 big rubber tubes from our well). He pulled back the leaves in that area outside and found tons of nuts. So now he's trying to dig down to the tubes from the outside, because digging from the inside would mess up our radon barrier.
So........no rats....but still a big rodent.

[Float On]

Oh I bet squirrels could cause more problems than a little rat. They are persistent so make sure any access is blocked off. The guy we hired was just a landscape handyman sort. He filled in with rocks and cement. We've not had any problems since.

[CathyA]

I guess I thought that red squirrels would prefer being outside, and up a tree.
DH followed the tunnel from the yard next to the house, clear down to the cement footing that the foundation is built on. There is a huge opening in the footing. The water tubes just go through that. Even though this house was built around 1975, you'd think they would have enclosed that area better. DH will somehow seal that area around those tubes, but I'm thinking once that mouse/squirrel tunnel has been destroyed, and we keep leaves away from the house, maybe it won't be attractive to them anymore. Digging down 3-4' in fairly hard soil seems strange for a little animal to even mess with.

[sweetana3]

Might have been opportunistic and used another animal's tunnel.

Thank heavens it was not bats in the attic that my mominlaw had. Even harder to get rid of.