Keeping rodents out of engine bay?

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We use baiting stations in the barn and sheds, in-spite of that I still had one persistent nest builder that liked my tractor, so I started leaving the hood up which seems to be working. I need to check the fluids anyways before I start it so its actually kind of a good thing.
 
I was changing a starter on my '79 Mustang once. Raised the hood, jacked the front end up and crawled underneath. While working I saw something move and it was a mouse. What I didn't see was three small babies. The mouse came down one at a time and got each one. It was so sweet.
happy2.gif
 
My mom has had her car in the shop twice to repair wiring damage done by squirrels. She lives in an apartment complex that isn't exactly in the woods. She has some sort of repellent spray that hasn't been effective, but we're going to try cayenne pepper and mothballs next. She lives on a fixed income and the $400 she spent last week to fix the latest damage distressed her a great deal.
 
Nice pic,beware he has relatives. Never knew critters could cause such a mess. [/quote]
If one lives on a farmstead in the middle of corn and beans you will get to know all of the rodent family. Ground hogs, squirrels and rabbits are good eating but with aging reflexes I had to upgrade the armory from a 22 to shotgun or 5.56
 
Originally Posted By: SirTanon
Cat urine sprayed liberally around the car.. or on the underside of the engine.. perhaps?


or use your own if no cat is handy... who knows if it'll work.

I hung one of these in the engine bay, so far I'm the only car owner I know of that didn't get unwanted guests in our street.

jumbo_toiletblok_lavendel_(Small).jpg


the strong chemical smells apparently keep them out, similar to the dryer cloths?
 
Originally Posted By: pkunk
I've had a mouse problem on and off for years as do my neighbors. Irish Spring is food, dryer sheets are nesting material, mothballs will bother you more than them. Peppermint oil (the good stuff) can work short term but the mouse scent trails are hard to find for us mere mortals. The only thing that has worked continuously for us is surrounding the vehicles with LED rope lights on a dawn to dusk timer. My cats keep the population down but they can't get them all. poison works but is bad for the cats and again doesn't kill all of them before they do damage. Check the valley pan under the intake manifold as well as the filter housing.


I'll have to second this. Even the 1+million scoville peppers didn't bother them. Cats do nothing. We have a bunch of stray cats around and these rats are too big for them, some even resembling squirrels.

These things are a real curse, we've been leaving the hoods open about a foot and if you make one mistake and skip a day, say goodbye to your ignition wires. All leaving the hood open seemed to do was relocate their toilet from the engine to the inside of the car. Eating the ABS wiring harness to enter the vehicle is just par for the course. Last winter the battery died because the rats cut the alternator voltage regulator signal wire.

They've generally minded their own business for the past decade or so but the past couple of years have been insane. They nested in the rear quarter panels of a car that was parked for 6 months. The amount of [censored] and [censored] they left in there nearly ruined the entire car. Every single piece of interior paneling had to be removed to extract it, and I was dry heaving the entire process. Rats, while I know they're completely ignorant to the damage they're causing, just HAVE TO POOP on everything, poop as they walk, poop all over the valve covers, just poop like a machine gun all over everything. And they always seem ultra freaking determined to only go into the deepest crevice of an engine to poop and cause the damage there. A handful of ignition wire sets and alternator regulator wires are one thing, but going deep into the Vee of the engine tp fill with poop and then top it off by severing the knock sensor wire at the very base, to make sure you can't repair it after you tear the intake manifold and coolant pipes off is infuriating. Doing all that work is worth it though, to disable poop and [censored] aromatherapy vaporizer they got going on there,

Heavens forbid they could step one foot on the 10 glue traps. Last week I set little trays of antifreeze concentrate on the intake manifold (expensive Rotella ELC), where only the rats would go and they seemed to like it. The next day one or two were puking blood. Since then, no takers in fact the little dastards had the nerve to rebuild the kleenex nest around the antifreeze. Some of them still broke into the car and built a nest on the drivers side floor with kleenex, again. As for the V6 valley, I stuffed it with stainless steel scouring pads, let's see them gnarl that up for nesting material they might find themselves with bleeding gums.... or not. The rat mouth is probably somehow resistant to that too.
The persistent smell of roasting rat poo haunts me each day
 
Oh, rats! We have packrats, very resilient creatures and resourceful, nevermind tough. They eat and store bucketsfull of barbait, their nests can get huge and their ability to chew through almost anything is legendary. Several nights in a row we heard gnawing in the stone chimney in our upstairs bedroom. I got a ladder out and found a hole in the mortar between the stones. Probed with a wire and about 18 inches in hit something soft that squealed. Got the 22 and some bird shot and fired 2 rounds in and retrieved with a welding glove a cat sized rat. I stuffed with steel wool and new mortar and a prayer.
Underhood they are much worse than mice, chippers, squirrels or rabbits. Ultimately, find the nest and after some time they get slow from the barbait and I can get a shot at them.
 
Originally Posted By: PeterPolyol
Originally Posted By: pkunk
I've had a mouse problem on and off for years as do my neighbors. Irish Spring is food, dryer sheets are nesting material, mothballs will bother you more than them. Peppermint oil (the good stuff) can work short term but the mouse scent trails are hard to find for us mere mortals. The only thing that has worked continuously for us is surrounding the vehicles with LED rope lights on a dawn to dusk timer. My cats keep the population down but they can't get them all. poison works but is bad for the cats and again doesn't kill all of them before they do damage. Check the valley pan under the intake manifold as well as the filter housing.


I'll have to second this. Even the 1+million scoville peppers didn't bother them. Cats do nothing. We have a bunch of stray cats around and these rats are too big for them, some even resembling squirrels.

These things are a real curse, we've been leaving the hoods open about a foot and if you make one mistake and skip a day, say goodbye to your ignition wires. All leaving the hood open seemed to do was relocate their toilet from the engine to the inside of the car. Eating the ABS wiring harness to enter the vehicle is just par for the course. Last winter the battery died because the rats cut the alternator voltage regulator signal wire.

They've generally minded their own business for the past decade or so but the past couple of years have been insane. They nested in the rear quarter panels of a car that was parked for 6 months. The amount of [censored] and [censored] they left in there nearly ruined the entire car. Every single piece of interior paneling had to be removed to extract it, and I was dry heaving the entire process. Rats, while I know they're completely ignorant to the damage they're causing, just HAVE TO POOP on everything, poop as they walk, poop all over the valve covers, just poop like a machine gun all over everything. And they always seem ultra freaking determined to only go into the deepest crevice of an engine to poop and cause the damage there. A handful of ignition wire sets and alternator regulator wires are one thing, but going deep into the Vee of the engine tp fill with poop and then top it off by severing the knock sensor wire at the very base, to make sure you can't repair it after you tear the intake manifold and coolant pipes off is infuriating. Doing all that work is worth it though, to disable poop and [censored] aromatherapy vaporizer they got going on there,

Heavens forbid they could step one foot on the 10 glue traps. Last week I set little trays of antifreeze concentrate on the intake manifold (expensive Rotella ELC), where only the rats would go and they seemed to like it. The next day one or two were puking blood. Since then, no takers in fact the little dastards had the nerve to rebuild the kleenex nest around the antifreeze. Some of them still broke into the car and built a nest on the drivers side floor with kleenex, again. As for the V6 valley, I stuffed it with stainless steel scouring pads, let's see them gnarl that up for nesting material they might find themselves with bleeding gums.... or not. The rat mouth is probably somehow resistant to that too.
The persistent smell of roasting rat poo haunts me each day


Go to the nearest farm supply and get some real poison and set up some feeding stations.
We use something like this but in an inverted T, hanging wire down from the theaded cap with 7 or 8 chunks of poison threaded on it. http://www.publichealth.lacounty.gov/eh/docs/Specialized/Vector_Management/plastic_Pipe.pdf
We had dozens of rats at one point and now have zero as far as I can tell. Our cats and dogs haven't had an issue from the poison either, as most rats seem to hide somewhere to die.
 
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