kklaus
2016-01-26 15:17:49
- #1
Hello everyone,
we have been living in our own home, a terraced (middle) house, since summer 2014. Our problem is a marten. We have had the marten problem since the first winter after we moved in (2014). At first, we couldn’t identify it, just some scratching and scrabbling under the sloped ceiling in our daughter’s room and then nothing for a long, long time! Last fall (2015) a few times again, as if someone was about to scratch through the drywall and OSB, that’s when we first researched it and concluded that it must be a marten, and now it was back again yesterday.
When I read the reports on the internet, this uninvited guest causes a lot of damage and I don’t want to know what the insulation looks like by now and how many carcasses are decomposing there! All suggestions for deterring martens using "smells" that need to be regularly placed nearby will not work for us because the marten moves in an area under the tiles in the insulation that we cannot reach. We also do not have an attic; it is converted and houses the heat recovery system! Our neighbors do not have the problem (or do not notice it), but we are the only ones with dormers on the roof, and here I can imagine that this facilitates or even enables entry for the marten.
Isn’t a new house supposed to be built so that unwanted guests stay away??
What options do we have against our builder, who nonchalantly says that we first have to prove that there is a construction defect/damage for which he is responsible?
Who establishes this chain of evidence or can establish it for us?
Would legal expenses insurance and then a lawyer help, possibly?
I don’t have the necessary small change ready to quickly set up scaffolding and commission craftsmen to restore everything and secure it against renewed intrusion and/or to secure evidence.
I have also already spoken with building surveyors, they are not familiar with such problems either and refer to pest control/forestry office, but these creatures are under species protection and when one goes away, another comes. Besides, the pest controller also costs money, especially since the animal is not regularly there; it is a 5-unit complex with many possibilities for the marten to get on the roof, and that certainly makes it more expensive. Setting up traps, checking, questioning neighbors, God knows...
Help, help, what should I do, how should I proceed, something has to happen!!
Best regards Klaus
we have been living in our own home, a terraced (middle) house, since summer 2014. Our problem is a marten. We have had the marten problem since the first winter after we moved in (2014). At first, we couldn’t identify it, just some scratching and scrabbling under the sloped ceiling in our daughter’s room and then nothing for a long, long time! Last fall (2015) a few times again, as if someone was about to scratch through the drywall and OSB, that’s when we first researched it and concluded that it must be a marten, and now it was back again yesterday.
When I read the reports on the internet, this uninvited guest causes a lot of damage and I don’t want to know what the insulation looks like by now and how many carcasses are decomposing there! All suggestions for deterring martens using "smells" that need to be regularly placed nearby will not work for us because the marten moves in an area under the tiles in the insulation that we cannot reach. We also do not have an attic; it is converted and houses the heat recovery system! Our neighbors do not have the problem (or do not notice it), but we are the only ones with dormers on the roof, and here I can imagine that this facilitates or even enables entry for the marten.
Isn’t a new house supposed to be built so that unwanted guests stay away??
What options do we have against our builder, who nonchalantly says that we first have to prove that there is a construction defect/damage for which he is responsible?
Who establishes this chain of evidence or can establish it for us?
Would legal expenses insurance and then a lawyer help, possibly?
I don’t have the necessary small change ready to quickly set up scaffolding and commission craftsmen to restore everything and secure it against renewed intrusion and/or to secure evidence.
I have also already spoken with building surveyors, they are not familiar with such problems either and refer to pest control/forestry office, but these creatures are under species protection and when one goes away, another comes. Besides, the pest controller also costs money, especially since the animal is not regularly there; it is a 5-unit complex with many possibilities for the marten to get on the roof, and that certainly makes it more expensive. Setting up traps, checking, questioning neighbors, God knows...
Help, help, what should I do, how should I proceed, something has to happen!!
Best regards Klaus