Prior to this temporary skeeving, I wanted to wish you all a happy new year! My norovirus and boyfriend's weird illness have prevented me from saying this so far.

Happy New Year backatya!

If it found a way to get in, surely, it can get back out...

There's a kind of poison that makes the creatures really thirsty, so they go outside to die.

true enough, mightshould. My powers of rational thought seem to have left me for a while back there.

I had a mouse in my walls last year that defied all of my attempts to trap, poison and otherwise get rid of it. Apparently its nest was directly above my dining room ceiling, and it must have been a big one because every night as it lay down to rest, there was a loud "thump" as it settled itself among the floor joists. (Yes, I know it could have been a rat but I prefer not to focus on that, thank you.) ;-)

I plugged all of the holes I could find outside near the foundation and inside the basement with steel wool. It must have gotten out somehow because I never had dead-mouse-stench in the house, and it did not come back this year, thank goodness.

maybe it is a cat. You know how cieling cat likes to watch people um...

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Eep... is this something animal control would assist with? Or would it be more an exterminator's territory?

There won't be anything for it to eat, so presumably it'll die there.

That's what you think! I've had *something* living between the ceiling of my lower level and the floor of the living room for about a year now. It's horrible. Every night about 10 PM whatever it is scurries around like mad and makes scritchy scratch noises right above my head for about 5 minutes. I fucking hate it. I've been telling my husband about it for over a year and I think he thought I was nuts or at least grossly exaggerating how creepy this scrambling around and scratching and chewing is. I tried humane traps and inhumane traps and it's not falling for it so far.

Three days ago it made the climb. Now it's making the dash/scritchy above our heads again, but now it's between the ceiling of the living room and the floors of our bedrooms. WTF. The only good thing is that *it* has finally gotten my husband's attention. He never heard it before because it was always just above the computer room, where I was, and he was not.

PS - What you have is very much most likely not a rat - they're extremely sociable and would not like living alone under most circumstances. I think mine's either a mole, a squirrel, or just a mousy. Happy New Year to you too.

If there's any way you can get a bowl filled with ammonia (or some ammonia-soaked rags) in the space, this will chase just about anything out (and without killing him/her.)