Walking through up the stairs directly to the left in the courtyard when you leave the jail you come up on a hallway with a rat standing guard to the left as you enter. To pass above that rat over the rafters you can drop a ladder by throwing a stick at a trigger in the rafters.
However this trigger stays activated with the ladder down even after death or a reload. However the ladder cannot be interacted with. Effectively removing a very useful shortcut because of a bug.
Hope this helps you iron out those problems.
EDIT: Restart resets the ladder.