I’ve been living in this house for quite a few years and never had any pest problem.

For the last few weeks, I’ve been hearing something crawling. It sounds like it goes around everywhere, in the crawl space (including under one of the bathtubs causing sounds like springs) as well as what seems to be above the ceiling in some rooms. I went to the attic and don’t see any signs of it and nothing moved for the duration of more than an hour I was watching around up there. The attic is full of insulation material spread around, maybe that’s how it was done for an old house like mine.

The only major change that’s been done to the house was the copper repiping done back in 2009. I’ve checked to make sure that all the holes in the stucco (left open as a result of that project) had been plugged. I’ve also checked the wire meshes for airing out the crawl space are still in good working order.

From the noises that I hear, it sounds like whatever it is is quite sizable.

I like to handle things myself first before calling anybody else for help.

Some questions I have:

1. Somebody else in the house suggested that it may be a gopher digging through and coming out in the crawl space. Is that possible? If so, would gophers actually stay in the house and even climb up to the attic?

2. One other guess might be squirrels that we see quite a few of outside the house. Maybe one got through the into the attic through the fan ventilation “shutter” somehow. Is that possible? If so, same question as above: would it actually stay in the house for this long?

3. Other than rats/mice, what other pests can there be that like to crawl around and stay inside the crawl space or house walls or attic?

4. What kind of damage to the house can these pests do within the crawl space, house walls, or attic?

5. Would trying out Ramik’s products like what’s shown on http://www.amazon.com/s?url=search-alias%3Dgarden&field-keywords=ramik&x=13&y=18 be effective for gophers and squirrels? Or will that only work with rats/mice? From what I’ve read, whatever consumes Ramik’s products will become thirsty and run outside and die outside. Is that true?

6. What suggestions/techniques are there for me to figure out what kind of pest it is first?

7. What suggestions would you have to lure out and get rid of the pest?

8. How much would calling a pest control for something like this will likely cost me?

Thank you for reading this long post and for any helpful response.
Thank you for the reply and pointer, Tom. I’m going to give a Havahart a try. Unfortunately, Home Depot local store doesn’t have them (sounds like never did), so have to wait for shipping.