A visitor?

We have a mystery.   About a week ago I was working in the study and heard a fairly loud noise like something was sliding down a wall in the adjoining room ….a bathroom.  I checked.  Nothing was out of place.  All pets and people were accounted for.

Last night my wife was in that bathroom when a large linen cabinet sitting against the adjoining wall began violently shaking. Once again, all people and pets were accounted for.  

I strongly suspect we have a visitor. Today I plan to take everything out of the cabinet, move it, and look for signs of a visitor.  I also plan to set a live trap in the bathroom.

There was too much movement of the cabinet for it to be a mouse. Probably too much for rat …I have never seen a rat on my property, and I suspect my Master Mouser would have nailed it.  Besides, she shows no interest in that bathroom.

Equally strange is that my shelter pup was in the house last night, and she showed no interest in the commotion. Though much later in the night she let out a loud “wolf” for no apparent reason.

Besides the search and the live trap, my plan is to keep the bathroom door closed when no one is in there….and to leave it open if a human is in there (it does not strike me as a good idea to be tapped in a room with an unknown animal).

As for kind of animal…I have little idea. Maybe bird, opossum, raccoon, stray cat, squirrel…..

Any observations or suggestions?

Just offering a similar story which may provide some other ideas....of a non-animal nature.  I'm honing in on your first description of the sound of something "sliding down a wall".  Many years back, we had a similar mystery that we solved after the third incident.  There was a sliding sound accompanied by a reverberating sound and it would last only a few seconds.  So of course you are left to try to locate *where* the sound had even come from, much less what had actually caused it.  On that third instance, I was in the main living room next to the open stairwell which rises along the south wall of the house.  Half-way up that staircase is a landing where a window was placed and that window (older and part of the original house build) was typically raised full open in summer.  If memory serves me, the incident started about this time of year....late summer, early fall....when the humidity of the summer had departed and the drier air was affecting the woodwork.  The open window had apparently (still just an assumption) lost sufficient moisture, and and long since lost adequate spring tension, to keep it risen in place.  As it lost its grip on the window guides, it somewhat slowly dropped closed, creating a sliding sound first, but a more noticable reverberating sound as it dropped....enough reverberation to shake the window pane.  So I don't know if you have a window in the house that could be doing that....just a possibility.

Outside of that, "who you gonna call?...." :-)

Does your bathroom vent pipe happen to be behind that cabinet?  Maybe a bird or something fell into the pipe?

Hi John and Anne, no window or vent.  I have been exploring the cabinet. So far…nothing.   I thought I might find some droppings.  

Our most interesting visitor was a duck, stuck upside down in the very bottom of the flue of the masonry chimney for the upstairs fireplace in my parents house, which ends in the basement.. no visibility via the cleanout, had to reach in blindly..

He was fine once we chucked him in the pond..

Shaking cabinet sounds exciting.. looking forward to updates. Use good gloves!

Now I have a problem.  I walked in the bathroom, grabbed the cabinet and shook it….it didn’t budge.  The doors are pretty light.  There may have been something inside the cabinet.  I shall explore more.

I cleaned out the cabinet…nothing. No droppings.  One of the cabinet doors has a makeup mirror hanging from it.  If the door is shook…eve a little..it makes a racket. My present guess is something chipmunk size was inside trying to get out. My wife very well could have helped it get free without realizing it.  

John F Dean wrote:I cleaned out the cabinet…nothing. No droppings.  One of the cabinet doors has a makeup mirror hanging from it.  If the door is shook…eve a little..it makes a racket. My present guess is something chipmunk size was inside trying to get out. My wife very well could have helped it get free without realizing it.  

And it's now in your house? 😮 Lovely.

Good luck on chasing down that pest!

This reminds me of the time when I threw something into the (unlit) wood stove to eventually be burned and a medium-sized bird popped out.  It was so freaked out and pissed off, it flew around the house evading us. Eventually, my husband managed to catch it throwing a towel over it and brought it outside.

Yeah, that got our blood pressures up. Someday, I may regale you all about the bat...

My son once heard a horrible scrabbling, scratching sort of noise working its way down his stove pipe once. Then more flappy noises from the stove itself. Fortunately, it was September and the stove hadn't been lit for months, but it still had plenty of sooty ashes in it.

He went to investigate and found a very grumpy bird inside, who we decided must have been a phoenix though she could have been a sooty starling. He named her Scrabbles, took her outside, took a photo, and let her go.

John F Dean wrote:Hi John and Anne, no window or vent.  I have been exploring the cabinet. So far…nothing.   I thought I might find some droppings.  

John, I am not talking about a vent in the room.  I am talking about the plumbing vent pipe that a plumber would use to go up on the roof and unstop your toilet.  Most bathrooms have them.

Google says, These connect to your drain lines and go upward through the roof (or tie into a main stack/air admittance valve). They let air into the plumbing so water drains smoothly and sewer gases stay outside. Every fixture with a water trap needs this airflow

My cats have begun bringing in live chipmunk and storing them in the bathtub to play with later. They aren't killing them just bashing the hell out of them till the wife or I perform a rescue.

Robert Ray wrote:My cats have begun bringing in live chipmunk and storing them in the bathtub to play with later. They aren't killing them just bashing the hell out of them till the wife or I perform a rescue.

With the price of cat food lately, I'd be tempted to chuck the poor little beasties in the freezer..