I seem to have an unwanted visitor in the kitchen

Species = other species

Recipes?

Stuff the dormice with minced pork as well as the flesh from all of the dormouse’s limbs, together with ground pepper, pine nuts, laser and liquamen and place them sewn up on a clay tile in the oven or cook them in a roasting pan

Apicus

Edible Dormouse
Yes, it is what the name would suggest; it’s a type of mouse. And it is considered a delicacy on the islands of Hvar and Brač. If you spend some time on these islands, it’s worth trying! The dormouse is cooked on the grill, seasoned with salt, and cooked in olive oil before being served between two slices of bread

You do need a licence to trap glis glis. You don’t need a licence to trap grey squirrels and if you use a ‘humane’ trap you will need to kill them as it’s illegal to release them.

Sorry Supernana1, I think it’s one or more rats. If you aren’t able to trap or kill them yourself you need to speak to a pest control company.

bpca.org.uk/

It does seem odd that there were no droppings. How old are your grandchildren? Is it possible one of them could be posting items in through the gap?

👀👀 got me thinking! Surely not rats

oh I do hope that supernanal comes back and tells us what it is or was

A glis glis? Is that the dormouse then?

Obviously - The Borrowers

It’s a European edible dormouse Nannan9. Much bigger than the cute native British dormouse.

Dont think id fancy eating any kind of dormouse! Urgh.!🤮

While you have the boards off, look underneath the cabinets to see if there are any holes where “it” could be getting in. Plumbers often leave gaps around waste pipes or there could be a broken air brick. Clean it all out and sprinkle talc or similar powder round- lean the boards back in position for a few days then check for paw prints!

Call your local council pest control is an awful lot cheaper through them and they come back 4 or 5 times.
I had to call them in two years ago it cost £50. Recently my friends son who lives beside me called them in he heard a scraping noise in between his wall and the next door neighbour.
Also some of the items under his kitchen cupboard had been moved and the lid off his carton of cleaner had been removed and chewed. So it wasn’t a mouse because the container was actually about 4 inches wide. Also the smell was horrible.
Please call in pest control if you can afford to. Otherwise Amazon sell boxes with bait too you could try first.

I'd have thought, if it were rats, then things would be chewed. And there would be droppings. Are you sure the dog isn't doing it when he's bored or left alone?

I’m going with rat too. My DD keeps fancy rats as pets and this is typical behaviour. Please call pest control for peace of mind.

It does sound as if the OP’s visitor is a rat(s) but the lack of droppings and smell is strange. Worth getting the pest people in to check, at least they will discuss what to do and remove any bodies afterwards. Dead rats smell like open sewers!
My friend’s son is a very imaginative primary school teacher, so she managed to make 4 togas from a sheet - who knew - as he wanted to do a Roman feast, so a length of chicken on a skewer became ‘roasted dormouse’. The kids loved it!

Does sound like a squirrel or rat, definitely get it sealed up, before they move their family in .

I would say this is a rat or rats. I had them come in and get under the kitchen units, lots of damage done.

Rats don't scatter droppings everywhere. It's mice that do that. Rats normally have a distinct latrine area - and they're not at all smelly.
I tend to agree that it's more likely to be a squirrel, but whatever it is, it must surely be getting in from outside. You can mend the baseboard securely, but if it were me I would want to find out where it is actually getting into the wall.

I would think it's either squirrels or mice. I had a similar problem and called in pest control.

They told me the best thing to do is fill every gap with wire wool as rodents hate it - problem solved - never returned

Hope this solves the problem

Years ago we had a similar situation. Items going missing or being moved in the kitchen and ending up near the boxed in pipework in the corner of the room. No droppings anywhere and no smells. It went on for weeks until the day I came home and found a half eaten Mars bar with the wrapper removed on the breakfast bar and a nibbled apple in the fruit bowl. Called in pest control who set traps for rats, but they too were puzzled by lack of droppings. Next day the culprit was caught and turned out to be a grey squirrel who was nesting in next door's attic and coming down the pipe for his snacks.

I think it’s a rat. We had them in a cavity wall. They actually started to gnaw through breeze block to try to get in. Brought pest control never saw one all sorted. Decking can be a hiding place as well for them.

The most likely culprit is a rat. My daughter had a pet rat and she occasionally allowed it to run around freely (I know ….)
It used its freedom to collect things, some of them quite big and cumbersome, some shiny objects like coins, and stow them in a little cavity it made in the back of the sofa. Never any sign of droppings.

A similar thing happened to us. I had left a pair of leggings on the bathroom floor, and when I tried to pick them up I felt them being pulled back. A tug-of-war left me with leggings that had been ripped and chewed.
Later, my daughter was having a shower (over the bath) and heard a scraping sound under the bath.
I thought it might be mice, as we get field mice indoors occasionally, so we called in Pest Control .
When he took the bath panel off, he said "That's no mouse!" We found all sorts of things, all chewed. He said the rat was building a nest, and we were lucky to have found it in time before there was a family of rats.
We have no idea how it got in. Luckily it wasn't possible (I think) for it to get into the house.
Call Pest Control!