It came a few years ago. I would wake up early in the morning to a scratching noise. It sounded like it was something brushing against the window. At first, I thought it must be the window cleaner, but when it happened again the next day, I opened my curtains to find there was no one there. I decided it must be an overgrown plant that had managed to reach my window on the second floor. I must admit that I am not the best gardener and with school and work and life always piling up, my garden does get a little out of control sometimes. Any leaves that happen to encroach over the official boundaries, my neighbour jobs back angrily. I get it, it’s kind of annoying, but not all of us have a rich husband and can afford to not work, Caroline!
I went outside to look and see what needed chopping back. Like I thought, the garden was getting overgrown, but even the tallest branches couldn’t reach my window. I was confused, but not concerned.
Okay, so I didn’t know what was causing the noise, but equally it wasn’t really bothering me. It happened a few times a week and I was usually awake already anyway. Then I began to get woken up in the middle of the night. Somewhere a bird was crying. It wasn’t like any other bird that I know of. I don’t know how to describe it. It was somewhere between a shriek and a screech, or a shout and a groan, like someone was shouting directly into your ear, so close you couldn’t understand the words. It was loud. It pierced through the silent night like a knife through butter. I have an app on my phone for identifying bird calls but whenever I tried to capture the sound, it fell silent. I went to the window several times expecting to see something in one of the trees that line the street, but there was no sign of an animal or that anyone else had noticed the shrieking. Once the summer ended, the noises stopped. I didn’t think any more of it.
Until a few months ago when it came back. This time it started scratching in the evening and if I stood in the corner of my room, furthest from my bed, I could tell it was directly above me. Rats, I assumed. Or maybe birds. Then it began to shriek. The same noise I had heard before, only closer, and quieter. As if it knew I could hear it without it having to raise it’s voice. It came back every night, longer and longer each time, until I could hear it scratching and shrieking randomly from dusk until dawn.
I recalled that Darren, a neighbour who lived a few doors down, had a problem with birds last year. They had come in through broken vents and begun to destroy the timber and waterproof flashing. Darren had no idea they were up there until the water leaking through the roof began to grow mould on the ceiling of his daughter’s bedroom.
I don’t do heights, so I asked Darren if he would mind going up there and checking, seeing as he knew what he would be looking for. We don’t know each other that well really, but he’s a nice guy and was happy to help. Darren said that if there are birds in the attic, you have to wait until they leave and then block up their entrance point, so it’s best to do it in the morning when their likely to be out catching worms, or you’ll end up with dead birds.
A few weeks ago, he came round, torch in hand, and armed with replacement soffit vents in case mine were broken and climbed my rickety old stepladder up into the darkness to find out what was going on.
He wasn’t up there long. There was nothing up there to find. No animals, no nests, no animal poo – not rat or bird or bat. There was no evidence that anything had been living up there. He did say that one of the vents was missing completely, so he’d replaced it to stop anything from getting in in the future. Whatever it was, it wasn’t there now, and with the vent replaced there was no way for it to get in. I gave Darren a bottle of whiskey to thank him for his time. He said he didn’t really do much, but he took the bottle.
That night, I crawled into bed, expecting a silent night’s sleep for the first time in months. I was just beginning to slip away into sleep when my mind snapped awake again. The scratching was back. And it was moving. It was no longer by the wall, but directly above my bed. I thought about the poor creature now trapped above me. Darren had blocked up the vent. With no way out, the creature would surely starve to death. I thought about it dying. It’s little body decaying above me. The flies. The maggots. The smell. The smell that would permeate the walls and fill my house with rot.
In the morning, I called animal control. I’m in the UK and there are different rules for dealing with different animals. For example, grey squirrels are an invasive species and must be killed, whereas bats are protected and cannot be moved or harmed in any way. I wanted to be sure I was doing the right thing. Surprisingly, they had a cancellation and could come out the next day. That was a week ago.
When he came, the animal control guy agreed with Darren. There was no evidence of animal activity in my attic. He was an older guy and called me ‘love’ when he told me I’d probably just heard birds walking on top of the roof.
I resigned myself to a life of being patronised and kept awake by scratching. But that night there was no noise. Nor the next. And the next. Animal control poking about the attic must have frightened it away. Whatever it was, it was gone from the attic. For the past week, it has been dead quiet. No more midnight scratching or 3am shrieking.
Except I’m lying in bed right now.
And something is scratching at my bedroom door.