Indoor wildlife

You mostly know by now that I'm into little furry warm objects (with or without wings)
Well, just now I was in the kitchen (packing seeds) and I caught sight of a movement out of the corner of my eye. A little field vole sauntered out of my lounge, sat in the doorway assessing the situation and then came hesitantly up the kitchen towards me and disappeared under the fridge freezer.
I can only guess that it came in at the open back door when i went out to the garage for a while earlier. Aaaaaaaaaah bless it's little cotton socks, it was probably looking for somewhere nice and warm and cosy. I don't think it had bargained on sharing though LOL

For most, Phil, this would be a trip down to the store for some "Decon" or whatever one uses to poison rodents in the UK. I know that is probably not an option for you. Maybe someone has a live trap you can borrow... or you may already own one. What if this is a little "lady in waiting".. her potential for filling your house with voles is pretty scary.

Here is a terrible joke I was told many, many years ago:

As the story goes, a housewife discovered rats in the pantry. When her husband saw his wife putting on her hat and coat, he asked where she was going, and she told him she was going down to the corner store to purchase some "rat biscuits". Her husband muttered, "Forget that! If they want to live in our home, they can eat what WE eat!

Lol Weez
No, this little beasty won't want to stay in the house, it's just got blown a bit off course. I do have live traps (even sell them for the Mammal Group LOL), but i don't think that should be necessary. I left the back door open and discretely vacated the kitchen, so i expect it's tucked up in its own little vole hole by now. Or, being nocturnal, should be come morning
:)

We have voles here, but I confess I know little about them. I do know that they will create havoc if one winters over plants in the greenhouse. Ceeads lost many plants to voles over the last few seasons. I winter nothing over in mine, but I do wait until hard freeze to mulch my beds outdoors so that they don't take up residence add feed off my plant roots.

Yes, they are rather vegetarian! Which we might look on as a good thing in a human............

I once delivered some plants to a customer down the road, and she was showing me the old garden bed she planned to resurrect, since she had just recently moved into the rental home. It was such a curious looking place.

All the weeds were growing in it, but the roots seemed to be above ground and had woven themselves into a sort of veggie webbing on the surface. Here and there I could see holes that had been burrowed into the ground, each about 3" in diameter.

Later, it dawned on me that voles were probably inhabiting the spot. That neighbor has long since moved away, and she never tilled the garden space. I selfishly hope that the new tenants do attempt it either, since I don't want the furry little fellows relocating!

I don't think the voles here will be allowed to breed to make a population of those proportions (what a description lol :) as, since both my dogs died, the garden has been the playground of many neighbourhood cats! I have noticed recently that 2 of these take it in turns to set up vigil by a pile of overgrown rubble. I knew their were woodmice living there and now I suspect there's a family of field voles too!
So I'd better get on with my ideas for a conservatory and patio on this spot :-)

BTW a 3" diameter hole here would be rats (have you some sp of HUGE vole? - in europe that could only be water vole)
Field voles' holes are about three quarters of an inch across. I'm going to look up to see what you might have. In the UK water voles are strictly associated with water, but in mainland europe they're a serious agricultural pest - so perhaps you have a large one like that.

We have little garden voles here, they are terrible pests of hosta, daylilies and other perennials. I couldn't keep liatris, platycodon or delphiniums till we got cats to rid the gardens of them. I would see the top of the plant "wiggling" and then go over and tug on the leaves and the whole stem would come up, no roots. There were little holes everywhere.
Then at the greenhouse, we noticed the tops were missing off of a lot of plants, couldn't figure out what it was. The man from Dept of Ag came and said they were "Meadow Voles" about the size of a rat, without the tail. They were so cute, they would sit up and hold the food in their paws to eat. They are gone now. They had chewed holes in my pots of hosta and daylilies, eaten the tops off lots of stuff, a real pest.

It seems I recall someone telling me we have two kinds of voles here, as well. Whatever was digging holes in that garden plot was bigger than the little ones I've seen... about the size you mentioned, Phil. Whatever had gotten in to her garden plot was alarming!