A property that has had this once is more likely to have it again, and the second episode is easier to spot if you know what you are looking for.
Five signs, and the two facts that explain which kind of recurrence it is.
One: daylight noise, on several mornings
Not one odd sound in a windy week. A pattern — heavy noise in the early morning, on several days, above the same part of the house. That is what a return sounds like, and anything less is usually the house.
Two: new debris after you cleared it
This is why clearing the sills, the path and the low roofs after the first job was worth doing. Anything that appears now is unambiguous — insulation fibre, nesting material, shell fragments, gnawed chips. Old evidence sitting where it always was proves nothing.
Three: fresh gnawing against weathered material
Pale, sharp-edged marks standing out against the darker surface around them, with loose chips nearby. Old marks have greyed over and lost their edges. Fresh work at the margin of a closed point is worth reporting specifically, and it is rare.
Four: a new opening on the roof line
Compare this September's photographs with last year's. What usually changes is not the closed points but the roof around them: mortar cracked at a verge, a dry-verge cap lost in a gale, a soffit joint opened, a tile slipped. That is a maintenance finding rather than a failure of the earlier work.
Five: droppings on clean insulation
From the hatch, with the torch raked low. Dark droppings sitting on clean material means current activity. Grey crumbling ones under settled dust are the record of the first episode and mean nothing about now.
The two facts that decide what it is. When it started, and whether it is the same part of the roof. Within days or weeks and in the same place suggests a second opening that was missed. A year later and somewhere else is a new animal finding a detail that has failed since.
And the third possibility
That the roof space is shared with a neighbouring property, or that the source is next door. Signs: a careful survey of your own roof finding nothing at all; noise that seems to come from beyond an internal wall; a neighbour reporting the same thing. Stowmarket has a good deal of terraced and extended property where roof spaces connect.
What to do
Report it with the date it restarted and where it is on the roof. Those two details point at quite different explanations and they shape where anybody starts looking — which is a great deal more useful than simply saying it is back.
Questions
It came back within a fortnight. What does that mean?
Usually a second opening on the same elevation that was not found first time. Worth reporting with the date.
It came back a year later. Is that the same thing?
Almost certainly a different animal, finding a detail that has failed since. That is maintenance rather than a failure of the work.
How do I know it is not just the house?
Pipes, timber and wind make noise but do not travel. Something that moves from one point to another is an animal.
Squirrel Control Stowmarket
Squirrel control in Stowmarket is £280 fixed cost. Proofing work, where it is needed afterwards, is £180. Call 01502 630 122 and tell us what you have heard or seen.
For squirrel control in Stowmarket, call 01502 630 122, or read the Stowmarket squirrel control page.