Anybody else having rodents (squirrels, rats, etc.) nesting underhood and/or chewing on wiring?

[TonyR]

Found this under the hood of my 2018 F-150 on Tuesday. A tree rat brought in sticks and leaves and built a bed/nest and insulated it with the fiberfil from the thermal blanket surrounding the battery. It aslo took a small piece of the sound/thermal insulation from the firewall.

And look at that stash of acorns the tree rat put up for the winter......he was set, man!

An order of bags containing pepperment and cinnamon should arrive next week, along with an ultrasonic emitter device that also has flashing red and white LED's. Fortunately, it doesn't appear any wires were chewed, the best I can tell. Whew!

 

[bigredfish]

Smart little fucker

 

[Arjun]

Found this under the hood of my 2018 F-150 on Tuesday. A tree rat brought in sticks and leaves and built a bed/nest and insulated it with the fiberfil from the thermal blanket surrounding the battery. It aslo took a small piece of the sound/thermal insulation from the firewall.

And look at that stash of acorns the tree rat put up for the winter......he was set, man!

An order of bags containing pepperment and cinnamon should arrive next week, along with an ultrasonic emitter device that also has flashing red and white LED's. Fortunately, it doesn't appear any wires were chewed, the best I can tell. Whew!

View attachment 235464

View attachment 235465

View attachment 235467

This is why I've become so anal to the point that nowadays I pop the hood at least once a week

 

[Oneup]

Use your existing cameras and one of these Gamo air rifles. Works for me.

 

[bigredfish]

Use your existing cameras and one of these Gamo air rifles. Works for me.
View attachment 235483

I have an older model but effectively the same gun.
Great little air rifle!

 

[Underhill]

Last winter a mouse chewed through a little wire that engages the 4wd, just a fluke I saw it and scotch locked it right before the ice storm hit. Bought a bunch of bait and rodent stations from domyown.com

These are in tool shed on back deck, including my 20 year old gamo!

 

[TonyR]

This is why I've become so anal to the point that nowadays I pop the hood at least once a week

The little $hit did this between an oil change on 12/18 and when I found it on 12/23........5 days.

 

[Coldair]

had a customer need 2 k of duct replacement 18 months ago and now we are doing 10k of duct replacement

 

[Andykev]

Ford Fusion, got in to drive to store. WTF the engine is misfiring and barely running. Opened the hood and found the rat's nest, acorns, shredded hood insulation, and the wiring harness was chewed through. A new wiring harness for my 2012 (old) has to be special ordered, or not in stock. And it was $1500.
Luckily I was able to splice the two cut wires, which apparently affected something with the computer control to the engine. I taped and wrapped the exposed harness with that split plastic tubing in case he comes back. Rats also seem to perfer certain cars. A friend had a Toyota Prius with thousands of dollars in damage.
The wires in that car are "soy based" plastic which attracts critters.

 

[TonyR]

Before cars began using the soy-based thermoplastic insulation (2010?), we'd get chewed up traffic signal wiring in the at-grade pullboxes for underground conduits, mainly by their cousins....gophers but an occasional field mouse or wharf rat.

Once in a while they'd get between the bare conduit bond or the rigid steel conduit when they'd chew into a live signal conductor (120VAC) and I'd have to remove their corpse.

 

[TonyR]

I understand the rodents going after the thermoplastic but this moronic squirrel chewed the UN-insulated aluminum neutral in my MIL's service drop in two......VERY woodsy area, lots of trees and acorns, pecans, walnuts, etc. but no....he wanted metal!

She lost 120VAC devices in the house as explained in my post below, with video, almost 7 years ago:

Post in thread 'Zmodo / Funlux suck how they manipulate the game.'

Feb 28, 2019

When I was a traffic signal & lighting tech, the squirrels would chew in a perfect circle around the thermoplastic top of the photoelectric cell for the street light, open 'em up like someone had used an old fashioned can opener leaving the 'lid' sticking up. The rain would come in, mess up the circuitry after a time and we'd get a call for the street light day-burning. At least the PEC would fail with the light on, as the circuit is designed to power the lamp ON with the normally closed contacts of the relay.

Their gopher cousins would burrow into any electrical pull box in the ground...

• TonyR

• 
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[gwminor48]

A couple of years ago my truck started smelling like something dead. I found this dead possum on my cabin air filter and maggots under the floor mat. Of course the fan motor quit due to the "juices" leaking on it.

 

[Looksee]

I have had this problem with pests stealing my insulation from under the hood too. I finally put out a couple of cheapie cams set to IR a couple of months ago to see what was going on at night. What I have viewed has been surprising, informative, interesting and sometimes comical. Then I started putting out poisoned bait for rats and mice because I didn't want to set traditional traps that the rest of the cast of critters roaming around here would get nailed by, and electric traps seemed like a no-go for outdoors with the weather, or so I thought. Then I discovered an electric trap made to be used outdoors. I've emptied it many times and I can recommend it. This is it:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CCK3X5FG?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title&th=1

One night I captured some surprising events with two rats. I will share them here as soon as I can carve out some time.

edit: added image

 

[danweber1]

I've found using Irish spring bar soap will help to deter things from under the hood. Throw a new bar in a couple of spots every fall

 

[jpc-s4]

I have had this problem with pests stealing my insulation from under the hood too. I finally put out a couple of cheapie cams set to IR a couple of months ago to see what was going on at night. What I have viewed has been surprising, informative, interesting and sometimes comical. Then I started putting out poisoned bait for rats and mice because I didn't want to set traditional traps that the rest of the cast of critters roaming around here would get nailed by, and electric traps seemed like a no-go for outdoors with the weather, or so I thought. Then I discovered an electric trap made to be used outdoors. I've emptied it many times and I can recommend it. This is it:
View attachment 235512

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CCK3X5FG?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title&th=1

One night I captured some surprising events with two rats. I will share them here as soon as I can carve out some time.

edit: added image

Please, don't use poison!!! It ends up in the food chain for those who eat the rodents, killing owls, foxes, etc.

 

[Underhill]

Please, don't use poison!!! It ends up in the food chain for those who eat the rodents, killing owls, foxes, etc.

I wouldn’t worry about secondary non target poisoning as long as bait is secured. Almost everything available is an LD50; a mammal/bird needs to eat 50% of its body weight for a lethal dose.

 

[Looksee]

I will say that I had mixed results with the bait. Using the cameras, I know there were customers who dined at one of my "restaurants" every night for a week or two. (locked bait stations) The electric traps finally ended that.

edit: One rat taunted me every night by eating my stuff and posing in its favorite spot for the camera.