Feral Cat in Basement ceiling- HELP

Hi All, 

Any advice for a feral cat that is in our basement ceiling?? 

My spouse and I decided we were going to trap, spay/neuter, release the feral cats that have been hanging around our yard. We had been feeding them and were able to catch the first one in the Havahart cat trap. We have kept stray cats in our basement storage room before with no issues, I guess the cats before were more strays and not so feral. We made the mistake of letting the cat out of the trap. It has since gotten into the ceiling of our basement. We reset the trap and baited it with tuna and sardines. I'm hoping it just gets hungry enough to come out. It has been hiding in the ceiling since Saturday night. I'm checking on it as soon as I get home from work. 

I just wanted to see if anyone had any thoughts or suggestions. I don't think theres any other way out for the cat than the way it went in. 

Thanks! 

Well...I have no clue, although the tuna should certainly lure it out.  And once the ceiling is cat-free, of course, some repair work to prevent it happening again!  I'm concerned that it has been up there so long without water, although it may be coming and going when you all are asleep.

What a pain. But I think he'll come out eventually.

I had something similar happen to me!   I was feeding my ferals on my back porch.  When they were about 6 months old, I left the storage room door open so they could get in there and hide if they wanted to.  Well, who knew that there was a way for them to get from the storage room, into the frame of the house (the eaves) and then to the BACK of my fireplace!!!  

I left food in the storage room where they got in thinking oh if they get hungry enough they'll come get it - but TO NO AVAIL.  They were stuck behind my fireplace meowing, for two nights in a row.  Finally I could not wait any longer so I got a neighbor friend of mine to saw through an opening in the wall and got two of them out.  The third one would not budge. So he had to cut another hole in my back bedroom wall.  I put the Hav-A-Hart trap there with food baited.  When he came out for the food I got him!  

They would have died there if I hadn't intervened because they'd gotten themselves stuck and didn't know the way back.  

If it's been two nights already, he would have come out by now.  That's a long time for a cat to be hungry, so you may have to rescue him IF he doesn't come out this evening.  He could have crawled through another opening or scratched himself a new opening to hide in.  Is he meowing?

What about treats? Tuna is very good, but it may be easier to put treats close to the cat. My cat is crazy about Orijen treats.

Have you gotten your kitty back yet?  So it'll be 3 days tonight without food?