06:30 and I have been woken up by crunching noises above the bed … it’s becoming a daily thing now the cold weather is upon us. The house is a converted stone barn and the ceilings are vaulted (if that’s the right description) so there is minimum space between the tiles on the roof and the ceiling in the bedrooms.
It’s not rats as we had previously, the creature does not scurry around quickly like they did. It does move around during the day as my cat often sits and stares at the front lounge wall during the day but this chewing/crunching always seems to happen in the bedroom ceiling and around 06:30 …
Any suggestions as to how to regain my sleep and not be woken at 06:30 for the rest of the winter as i suspect this will continue until i deter or kill whatever is in there !
It is probably loir.
We have had this problem too.
We now have a sonic repellent in our combles and, even though we would have expected to hear them now the nights are colder, we are not woken up in the middle of the night.
So far.
Hello
Are you able to record the noise?
If it’s in the wood, then it’s probably capricorne. If there’s movement then it depends the size of the pitter patter. Anything from mouse to fouine is possible, not withstanding bird or bat.
Try banging on the ceiling with a broom handle and hear what happens. If there’s no loft access, look around the house: poo on walls (probably bird or bat), holes under guttering, laine de verre on the floor, (fouine or larger animal). Poo/crottes on the ground, depending on the size.
Need more clues, then one can conclude/eliminate.
R_le_P 
We learned to live with roof noises in Bretagne. OH used to bang on the ceiling with his fist and the wacky races ceased. Fouines are not nice, leave a nasty smell but we had rats and mice and even five cats sat on the bedroom floors with eyes fixed on the ceiling never did much until they exited the stonework outside. Everyone in the old longères suffered this torment at certain times of the year. Others had ticking death watch beetle noise.
Oh! That brings back a hilarious memory!
In a flat I shared with some pals, one guy had a regular noisy event take place in the room above his bedroom.
As if writ large on a calendar for every Sunday, the couple in the room above would engage in noisy, boistrous sex.
We all liked a lie-in on a Sunday because in those days Match of the Day was from 11:30 pm. We’d get in Newcastle Brown Ale [?], roll a few joints …
Alan would spring out of bed, hammer on the ceiling with a broom handle … Every Sunday.
The plaster of his ceiling looked like the Moon, covered in craters.
That reminds me of when I used to live in a mid-terrace house many years ago. Our neighbours were a lovely couple, about our age and only recently married. She worked in an office and he worked nightshifts at Honda, so they only had about an hour together when she got home and before he left for work.
She was very vocal when they were having sex during their hour together each day. In the colder months it was just us and the neighbour on the other side who got to hear it, but during the summer they’d happily leave the windows wide open so the whole cul de sac was able to hear them at it 
There is movement and chewing. The ‘animal’ moves around in the walls driving my poor cat mad.
Very quiet pitter patter compared to last years rat and no signs of any intrusion around the base perimeter of the house this time. No signs of poo on walls or floor.
The house did have a big mouse issue when we bought it in 2016, lots of gaps (now filled in) and the previous owner left the house with dry goods in the cupboards and in the attached barn so it took time to clear up and exclude the mice from getting inside the house. The chewing seems to be diminishing and still only seems to occur around sunrise ?
Have you tried sticking an IR wildlife camera in the attic? Prices range from 50€ for a basic one up to the sky’s the limit.
They are really useful in finding what’s lurking up above one’s head.
Bat bird, mouse could be any of the above.
But not a fouine given the noise level - in my experience fouines wear hob-nailed boots and play football 
We don’t have an attic, its vaulted so a tiny gap between the plaster board / insulation and the roof tiles.
I’m hoping its a mouse or may be a loir - One of my neighbours catches dozens of loir a year from his quite gappy house .
My issue is i have no idea where its getting in so not sure where to put a humane trap.
Put it anywhere. If it’s a mouse/mice and your trap has peanut butter in it they’ll find it. I’m taking out a mouse a day at the moment from our house. Impossible to seal up our “gappy” house and with the kitchen door open in this heat they are just strolling in from the surrounding fields. We gave up on humane traps - not efficient enough - and now use the battery ones - death seems to be humane (unlike snap traps which can go horribly wrong.)
For us, our mice wake up at about 4pm and from then onwards are happily scrounging around - small scrabbly noises - I get used to the noise.
Yeah it must be all that diving, falling over and riling in agony after being tripped up over Plastic Santa.
Ho ho ho 