Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting Rats!!!

This morning I opened the hood to check oil, and saw that my brand new Magnecor wires were eaten by rats ! They even sh*t on the engine block, cracked some plastic and made a VERY convenient stash of bones under the battery!

Anybody tried spraying something under the hood to scare the *******s away?

Back in '91 when I drove an Escort GT - I had the same problem due to living in an apartment complex where the rats roamed freely around the trash dumpsters.
I took the car in for a regular oil / filter change and the dealership told me I had eaten wires and rat droppings on the top of everything. They crawl in because the engine is warm and they just want to piss you off!
What the dealership told me to do is get Rat Killer Packets and place them in various spots wedging them in where ever you can get them to stay. You only need a few under the hood at a time ( two or three )... Make sure you don't get them next to anything that gets hot - wouldn't want a fire.
After I did this, the problem seemed to just go away.
Read the package and find out how often you will need to change the packets out.

It's good to know I am not the only guy who had rats running around under his hood.

Good Luck Dude!
Eurythmian

I had a similar problem, my A/C/Heat on my Toyota pickup stopped blowing air and the Fan was vibrating heavily. Found a nest of chewed up insulation in front of the Evap coil. The Bast@rds had chewed a hole through the fan to get there. Had to replace the fan and clean out the heater area. Looked like chipmunk work , not rats though. Chipmunk poop everywhere. Left eaten acorn shells all over the motor, in the heater ducts, even inside the front door panel. Real PITA.

Aha...revenge of the roadkill.

I was wondering how Sergey's Rat problem turned out...

Moscow Russia - Wow!

Eurythmian :p

Well - the problem was more-or-less resolved.

The parking lot where I keep the car has guard dogs. They are fed bones. The rats need food, especially this time of year, when it's about -7 C and everything's under snow.

When I return from work and park the car, the rats home-in onto a warm engine. So they've made a nets and a good stash of bones. That's how they've been tracking-down the car thoughout the parking lot, even after I've moved it.

Well - got rid of the stash, got rid of the dog's bones, etc - and the problem just went away.

BTW - on the ame parking lot rats ate through a fuel-line of some older car - the owner turned it on, and the car burned all out!!! That's rats for you....

rats in the building took up residence under the hood of moms then new 87 taurus...thankfully didn't chew on anything and didn't stay long...but left the doo-doo calling cards that only they can leave

my room window at mommy home has a big tree outside and i would sit n my room at nite and just watch them play on the roof of the apt next door and crawl thru the tree...

on our patio we had an old tv stand....at nite i would hear this crackling noise and i figured it was the rats running around down on the ground....one day i went to clean off the patio and i moved the tv stand it was a graveyard of snail shells....all with big holes in them or completely torn apart....i counted like 33 shells and was pretty much grossed out (city kid...dont like gory **** too much)...i swept them up and washed everything down....they came right back the next nite....when i cleaned again there were 7 shells.....i tossed out the stand and they found somewhere else to have their s-car-go

gdub520 - Been Hit'n the meds lately or what?

Eurythmian
:rolleyes:

Rats are nothing...we have very large ground squirrels that roam the parking lot here at work (remote military installation). One hitched a ride under the hood of the 'tour to my home some 60 miles away . It then jumped under the hood of my neighbors Isuzu and ended up at the local laundromat. Both of us had small nests built up between the fender well and firewalls of our vehicles. Luckily nothing got chewed up...that I know of.

My work vehicle, an '86 Chevy 1 ton p/u (tactical vehicle), had a nest of the buggars hatch out and two of them died in the space between the air cleaner and intake manifold on the rear of the engine...didn't figure out where the smell was coming from until they were par-boiled in their own juices. It was hell getting the remains out!

been called eurythmics much???

no wonder the rats attacked your escort gt...they thought their wheel was under the hood