Is something living in our loft?

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Yesterday, Sarah asks me why the hatch to the loft is open. Now this hatch is just a square board of plywood that you lift in and out to get into the loft. It's about 6 feet off the ground and it sits on a wooden rim - no fancy closing mechanisms. Anyway, yesterday she found it sitting askew on the inner rim of the loft - it can only have got there if it had been physically lifted.

But neither of us did it. In fact, without a chair or a ladder we can both *just* touch the hatch but not push it up, which rules out sleepwalking or anything. We haven't used the hatch for several weeks and it's impossible we wouldn't have noticed it being out of place all that time.

On the other hand, a prehensile creature living in the dark, dusty, cramped space above our ceiling? Which couldn't have got itself up ther unless it was 6 foot 6 and extremely strong, or unless it came through from the other flats? which has no realistic access to the house as it couldn't get back?

I lay awake for the best part of two hours last night panicking about this. That something might be living there seems almost unbelievable; but that the hatch was physically moved seems impossible without that being the explanation.

Help!

― Markelby (Mark C), Sunday, 26 February 2006 10:55 (twenty years ago)

it's six feet off the ground but you can only *just* touch it but not push it up? on tiptoes? w/ jumping?

your story doesn't tally, I'm afraid. I think you're just trying to scare us

― RJG (RJG), Sunday, 26 February 2006 11:08 (twenty years ago)

squatter?

― ken c (ken c), Sunday, 26 February 2006 11:08 (twenty years ago)

either that or an army of ants, they can lift things heavier than their own body weight you know.

― ken c (ken c), Sunday, 26 February 2006 11:11 (twenty years ago)

Stand on a chair and look. Take a mallet with you so you can hit the intruder over the head.

― ailsa (ailsa), Sunday, 26 February 2006 11:11 (twenty years ago)

if anything, it's probably an alien

― RJG (RJG), Sunday, 26 February 2006 11:12 (twenty years ago)

In which case, don't take a mallet. Take one of those things that the Ghostbusters had. That might work.

― ailsa (ailsa), Sunday, 26 February 2006 11:15 (twenty years ago)

Just wait..next thing you know, they'll be calling you..FROM INSIDE YOUR OWN HOUSE!

― ALLAH FROG (Mingus Dew), Sunday, 26 February 2006 11:19 (twenty years ago)

4 8 15 16 23 42

― estela (estela), Sunday, 26 February 2006 12:21 (twenty years ago)

estela, you've cursed us all!

― ailsa (ailsa), Sunday, 26 February 2006 12:23 (twenty years ago)

You've opened the box!

― melton mowbray (adr), Sunday, 26 February 2006 12:23 (twenty years ago)

sorry! i just couldn't believe markelby and sarah didn't guess who had opened the hatch.

― estela (estela), Sunday, 26 February 2006 12:29 (twenty years ago)

i just bought a lotto ticket with those numbers

― ken c (ken c), Sunday, 26 February 2006 12:32 (twenty years ago)

Haha, surely even if you get six numbers it'll only be worth a tenner with all the other people playing! A tenner AND bad luck for life.

― melton mowbray (adr), Sunday, 26 February 2006 12:34 (twenty years ago)

When you last visited your loft some dust probably fell off your shoes. Within that dust, picked up while you were walking the streets of London, there could have been a badger egg, too small for the human eye to detect. For several months the egg incubated in the darkness until the badger burst forth. It is hungry and bored in its strange world of darkness. Its only pleasure is to play with hatches.

― Tehrannosaurus HoBB (the pirate king), Sunday, 26 February 2006 12:37 (twenty years ago)

RJG OTM (CIA, NBC, ABCDEFG, NRA)

― latebloomer: My Baby's A Labrador, He's Beautiful (latebloomer), Sunday, 26 February 2006 12:40 (twenty years ago)

http://www.hollywoodjesus.com/movie/signs/36.jpg

Markleby, at night in his bed.

― latebloomer: My Baby's A Labrador, He's Beautiful (latebloomer), Sunday, 26 February 2006 12:51 (twenty years ago)

Meanwhile, upstairs:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41298000/jpg/_41298613_badger_203.jpg

― Tehrannosaurus HoBB (the pirate king), Sunday, 26 February 2006 13:00 (twenty years ago)

well that badger does look hungry and bored so i am inclined to believe your theory, hoBB, even though at first it seemed implausible.

― estela (estela), Sunday, 26 February 2006 13:09 (twenty years ago)

the badger is merely the larval form of this creature:

http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/~dragonet/alien/DOGBURSTER.jpg

― latebloomer: My Baby's A Labrador, He's Beautiful (latebloomer), Sunday, 26 February 2006 13:12 (twenty years ago)

omg, nude spock appeared yesterday and started that dispiriting astrology thread. i hope he hasn't been up in your loft for the past few weeks, thinking and chuckling and flossing his teeth.

― estela (estela), Sunday, 26 February 2006 13:19 (twenty years ago)

This reminds me of the Grudge.

― jel -- (jel), Sunday, 26 February 2006 13:27 (twenty years ago)

Jeez, I would click on this thread for the first time when I'm at home alone. With my back to the loft...

― sgs (sgs), Sunday, 26 February 2006 17:18 (twenty years ago)

poor guys

i bet it's a raccoon. wait, do you have raccoons in england?

― POOP BITCH (Mandee), Sunday, 26 February 2006 17:28 (twenty years ago)

Markleby, at night in his bed.

i've never known anyone who wears a wig in their bed at night

― ken c (ken c), Sunday, 26 February 2006 17:29 (twenty years ago)

The Raccoon Act of 1887 banned all Raccoon's from homes with lofts.

― jel -- (jel), Sunday, 26 February 2006 17:33 (twenty years ago)

wigs make him feel safe.

― latebloomer: My Baby's A Labrador, He's Beautiful (latebloomer), Sunday, 26 February 2006 17:45 (twenty years ago)

Update: I WENT IN THE LOFT. I have never done this, even when I bought the house. I took a hammer with me for protection.

It's dusty and very low and all I caught was a splinter. It's surprisingly roomy and there are two water tanks rather than one. I wonder why? So, no psychopaths, though obv the alien larvae have a choice of places to breed.

(8 feet from the ground, not 6 - I'm just used to typing 6 feet is all)

― Markelby (Mark C), Sunday, 26 February 2006 21:49 (twenty years ago)

This might sound unlikely but was it windy? When we lived in our last house the breeze through the roof could really rattle the loft door...it never dislodged it but it did lift it. Also is it a terraced house. In another house I lived in you could actually move between houses through the loft spaces...now that was spooky.

― Ned T.Rifle (nedtrifle), Sunday, 26 February 2006 22:02 (twenty years ago)

http://www.fiercepanda.co.uk/public_html/badger_images/big_badger_logo.gif

― Tehrannosaurus HoBB (the pirate king), Sunday, 26 February 2006 22:49 (twenty years ago)

markelby "two water tanks" jackson

― estela (estela), Sunday, 26 February 2006 22:52 (twenty years ago)

Wind, or some kind of thermal microclimate in our upstairs landing, is so far the leading explanation for the phenomenon. It has been pretty windy here lately, and we are sort of in a terraced house, though a badger infestation would be intriguing. I picture a badger thinking and chuckling and flossing his teeth...

― sgs (sgs), Sunday, 26 February 2006 23:09 (twenty years ago)

Oh, right, guys, sorry about that.

― nabisco (nabisco), Sunday, 26 February 2006 23:17 (twenty years ago)

:) tell us some of your lofty thoughts, nabisco!

― estela (estela), Sunday, 26 February 2006 23:32 (twenty years ago)

Why don't you sell one of the water tanks?

― Paul Kelly (kelly), Monday, 27 February 2006 10:53 (twenty years ago)

or rent it out

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 27 February 2006 10:59 (twenty years ago)

Incidentally, I think one tank is for water to your hot water storage thingy and the other feeds the central heating system. Or something.

― Ned T.Rifle (nedtrifle), Monday, 27 February 2006 11:00 (twenty years ago)

Ned, have you been living in Mark's loft?

― Nicholas Passant (Nicholas Passant), Monday, 27 February 2006 11:03 (twenty years ago)

Yes, and I tell you it needs sorting out...the porn stash in particular needs some attention. And don't get me started on the condition of the backwater valves. And then there's these bloody badgers hassling me all night long...

― Ned T.Rifle (nedtrifle), Monday, 27 February 2006 11:07 (twenty years ago)

You leave my backwater valves out of this! Though I could install a bidet I guess.

― Markelby (Mark C), Monday, 27 February 2006 11:22 (twenty years ago)

Let's start with a flush toilet ;)

― sgs (sgs), Monday, 27 February 2006 11:28 (twenty years ago)

Don't worry, it's probably just a monster.

― James Ward (jamesmichaelward), Monday, 27 February 2006 11:31 (twenty years ago)

http://www.lanpirates.net/misc/warewolf.gif

― Ned T.Rifle (nedtrifle), Monday, 27 February 2006 12:17 (twenty years ago)

R.O.U.S.s? I don't believe they exist.

― sgs (sgs), Monday, 27 February 2006 12:21 (twenty years ago)

C.H.L.D.

Canibalistic Humanoid Loft Dweller = mutant species which first evolved in NYC's Lower East Side and has now spread to London.

― Boris and the Johnsons (kate), Monday, 27 February 2006 12:26 (twenty years ago)

The other water tanks for the flat below you surely, seeing as they don't have a loft of their own?!

― Vicky (Vicky), Monday, 27 February 2006 13:07 (twenty years ago)

OMG this happened to me once! I was living with 2 friends, the attic hatch was just a board over the hole, one day we came back and it had been moved halfway across the hole! Around this time the lid to our kitchen bin also disappeared. I figured it might be because it was a terraced house and maybe you could get between the houses via holes in the attic walls or something and someone was fucking with us by moving objects around.

Or it might have been the landlord but he never once came round the whole time we lived there as far as we knew.

― Colonel Poo (Colonel Poo), Monday, 27 February 2006 13:17 (twenty years ago)

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