To all,

I've got an '85 Chevy flatbed that I use every couple of months. It sits outside by my shop. Today I tried to use it and the rats had packed about a bushel of sticks and leaves over the entire engine and chewed up a LOT of the wiring...

I spent about four hours cleaning out the debris and splicing the wiring back together. What a pisser!

Is there anything that I can put in the engine compartment to prevent this from happening in the future???

I've heard that moth balls and/or dryer sheets can help.

Any other ideas???

They (the rats) did the same thing to my Toyota Tacoma about three months ago, but not quite so bad..



Mo

 

Ttt

 

You could use "Rodent Tape", it's made with the same stuff that puts the hurt in pepper spray, but it's not cheap. Of course neither is redoing a wiring harness.

How to Protect Your Car From Rodents | Rodent Tape - Consumer Reports News

 

Get a cat, or a ratter dog like ours.

We had a van that the rats liked, so we put rat poison in boxes in around the battery etc., and it sort of worked. The wife came home after crossing the border and said something smelled bad in the van - they noticed it at the border as they went thru customs. Sure nuff, there was a rather dead and very smelly rat wrapped around the fan motor. It had to be scraped off with a LONG LONG stick. Not fun at all. A liberal spraying of Awesome Cleaner with Bleach did the rest of the cleanup and removed the stink.

 

Moved to the lounge?

 

Thanks Don.

Knew it should go somewhere, but my thinky part was on the fritz last night.

 

I hope you wore a particle mask when you cleaned it
I think cats but they stink and have more cats in your vehicles I have my own cat/ varmit control: mentioned similar already, I use super high Scoville granular hot pepper for cat. They walk on it and go to lickin themselves and BAM, uncomfortable for le ***** kat now also use diluted (and filterd if needed) dave's insanity hot sauce, ghost pepper or scorpian pepper sauce, in spray bottle. Very effective deturrant for multi- purpose. Strings of garlic may be another way, less corrosive ingredients, but do rough cut russian kgb maul rats eat that for breakfast???
Build a garage, raise some snakes, string up bright led xmas lights all in the car, air compressor-timer-train horn air horn, sticky traps made from large commercial signs using 3m or gorilla adhesives, dried rice or couscous with beef flavoring placd in bee traps and a small drink of evian water for the stay (for dignified social climbing rats), crack cocaine and sugar cubes strewn about( for the lab reasearch rat who just cant stop hittin it)
Actual hi tension hi voltage wires run paralell (physically not electrically) to wire harness and connected to a pair of large capacitors (solar charged of course for a small carbon rat footprint) , ferremone scented hermorphrdite decoy rats equipped with wifi cameras and IP To a server that sends your smartphone a live multiple angle shot video from which to guide a drone cat you control remotely with your tablet device.
theres more!

 

I thought this looked familiar T 20, so I merged your threads together and moved 'em back into the General Sub-Forum, we've got some ideas above. But it's a pain when mice, rats, and squirrels find your wiring to be a delectable snack.

 

Peppermint oil. Smells good to us, but too strong of scent for rodents.