"notbob" wrote in message
...
I live in the CO Rockies at 8K ft, a rather rural snowbird park, in a
modular/park model home, essentially a perm mobile home, if you will.
I have alum flashing around the underside.

At night I wake to hear this tick,tick,tick. A sound like someone
randomly tapping on a hard table top with the end of a pen/pencil.

I just had the dog go nuts and try to dislodge the stove. Then I
remembered: this is the time of year that little critters tend to move out
of their cold, in-ground burrows and try moving in with nice, warm humans.
That's my guess based on your description. A critter has moved in. Did you
just recently have a severe temperature drop in the area?

Just this weekend I set a peanut butter based trap only to find it all
licked away. Then I reset the trap with a pistachio nut glued down with PB.
Mice tend to try to take morsels like whole nuts home to the nest (AMHIKAT),
so they try to dislodge it and BAM! A very fat little mouse was stuck in
the trap on Sunday.

Apparently I had just the one because the dog's no longer got 'rodent
insanity' and the other three traps are empty. My bet is you've got a
critter and your best bet is a few traps with nuts glued to the treadle with
PB. I'd start with a mouse trap and work up through the rat traps and into
the Hav-a-hart size. If you've got critters, you'll see the bait gone and
maybe even the whole trap gone if it's too small.

As for noise scaring off rodents permanently, don't believe it. I used to
live next to a discotheque (remember disco?) and despite playing Donna
Summer at floor shaking volume, the place was infested with rats.

http://www1.agric.gov.ab.ca/$department/deptdocs.nsf/all/agdex594 says:

Mice can be frightened by unfamiliar sounds or sounds coming from new
locations. However, they soon become accustomed to new sounds and lose their
fear of them . . .While it is possible to cause permanent physiological
damage to mice with ultrasound, the intensity of such sounds must be so
great that damage to humans or domestic animals would also be likely. For
these reasons, ultrasonic and ultrasound devices are not recommended to
effectively scare away mice.

--
Bobby G.