Wire and NYC Rats
 

I was speaking with my nephew at dinner last night. He told me about his issues with rodents and his BMW X6. His living in NYC with all the rats has it's issues.
His O2 sensor wiring has been chewed 3 times, with his insurance company, $500 deductible, picking up the $3,500 dealership per incident repair, mostly labor due to hard to reach location.
He told me he's tried Capsaicin type spray and such, but nothing seems to help. He currently has 2 ultra sonic-strobe units a garage installed, but has no faith in it working. At this point he is worried about increased rates, or being dropped by his carrier.

We have the same problem where I live.

It's a big problem. My wife's Tesla which parks in the driveway has been "attacked" 3 different times as well. Same thing insurance company paid all three times, cost them over 10 grand. They love the soy oil based wiring harnesses.

They have also chewed thru the air lines in my motorhome, which was a huge PITA. Have never seen any signs of them being inside the motorhome, thank goodness.

The 2 other cars in the garage have never had any issues. My Volvo which parks in the driveway has never had a problem, but I will occasionally see signs of rodents in the engine bay.....seriously all of it is a big fat PITA. Everybody who lives out here has this problem....if your nephew comes up with a solution, please share.....

A couple of big nasty cats.

The redneck solution is to get under the car and figure out how to block access to that tasty wiring insulation with 1/4" "rabbit wire"mesh or similar. Then of course the next issue becomes future work, etc. I can see a future dealership visit "oh that extra $100 labor is from the hour we spent undoing a ton of wire mesh under there - looks like you ran over a rabbit hutch or something"

cats, snakes, poison, traps...

Maybe falconry or owls!

How about a big ol' car battery with some kind simple circuit under the car. Maybe the rat will chew that and end up like a Nat'l Lampoon Christmas cat?

I put glue boards and snap traps at strategic locations in the garage to handle mice. NYC rats will require the big rat traps and if you can, poison. You may still have a few incidents but hopefully it will make the problems fewer and farther between.

Someone posted elsewhere that bear spray works. It leaves a nasty residue behind...

I've often wondered if there's a way to wire a car like an electric fence...

It takes a lot of voltage to stop a rat and I've read that they can restart their heart. So the voltage traps are also physical traps that keep the rat juiced until a timer has run out.

The better thing about electric traps is it's a clean kill. But don't buy some shlock on Amazon like I did. Invest some serious cash and get the job done. Rats are smarter than ever now.

I did the 5 gallon bucket homemade trap and they totally ignored it. The final solution was using screen as mentioned and mothballs plus a couple other 'fragrances ' like ammonia.

The beginning of the end is no water and no food plus few places to hide and make a nest. The harsher the environment, the better. You really can't overlook a thing. Took me 3 months to get rid of them.

Might be worth a read:

https://www.bobvila.com/articles/best-rat-trap/

But, why are they using soy based wire coating? I had rodents chew on ac compressor wiring. The harness was cheap and labor $$$. The shop had to drop the steering rack and the total cost $1700, which insurance pd. $700 after deductible.

Just a guess...but I'm thinking another government regulation in the push to "save the planet"...

Wrap problem areas with metal window screen

Ultra sonic strobe is a joke. Poison and glue boards. Lots of both. Modern rat poisons do not have secondary poisoning effects. Being in NY your problem will probably be continual. Multiple lines of defense. A lot of bait and glue boards is way cheaper than any BMW repair.
I use First Strike Soft Bait available on Amazon.

Your probably right, that's what I was thinking.

Also, a friend of mine had rats eat the wiring on his Honda. He said, "Honda wiring is soy based , too.

When I was in my 20's, I built a storage shed on a woman's patio. She came by while I was working on the shed and screamed, " EEEEK, Rat." So, I wacked it with a shovel and she cried. She wanted the rat gone and not killed. If I had known that, I'd still would've wacked the rat.

My neighbor had rats in the crawl space under his house. He was excentric to say the least. One day he had no water pressure they ate through the 2" hose from the well and it was spirting everywhere. I covered it with dirt as far as i could and the rest with window screen. Then one day his sink was leaking they ate through the P trap so i put on a metal one and blocked the hole with window screen. also noticed they ate through the bottom of his dishwasher. I think he exterminated most of them after that but who knows if there is more.

I mix "rat poison, chicken food, icing sugar" and place it on aluminum trays in hidden/sheltered areas. The trick is not too much poison to chicken food ratio (20% poison to 80% chicken food dusted with icing sugar). They seem to ignore it for a while but eventually they can't help themselves.

Killing any animal isn't cool & I certainly don't enjoy it but what options do you have?

Spraying the undercarriage with something unpalatable worth a try?

The only thing that works IME is killing them (humanely).

https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/car-maintenance/how-to-protect-your-car-from-rodents-a5816950285/

Perhaps rats will not chew wires sprayed with cayenne pepper or one of the other anti-rodent sprays sold for this purpose. Keeping the wires sprayed might be a mild hassle, but there are also tapes etc.

We used a product called mouseaway to keep rodents away from vehicles and our pool equipment.

https://www.collegehillshonda.com/mm...4019-23172.png

Honda Rat Tape, lifetime supply

Rodent tape is a deterrent for critters that like to chew vehicle wiring. Wrap any trouble spots to prevent any future wire harness issues. The tape is treated with capsaicin (active component in chili peppers). When wrapping the harness it is recommended to use the half-wrapping method. Each time you wrap the tape around the harness overlap the previous layer by half the width of the tape. One roll = ~65 feet of tape.

Our Price: $45.90
Part # 4019-2317

The second time my wife's car got attacked. We gave the dealer a similiar tape to put on the area that had been chewed. That area has worked great. The third time they found a new area to destroy.

The only thing - in NYC - my buddy found that worked with his Honda was selling it and using Zip cars.

He got tired of $1500 bills to fix, and nothing stopped them chowing down. Cover one bit they found somewhere else. GL…

That's the shock trap I bought. Cheap POS. I've handled everything with new gloves wiped in peanut butter oil to remove my scent. It's tough.

Hiring it done is actually not a bad way to go. I mean a pest control company has to give some kind of guarantee that they can do the job and keep coming around as needed. Some are really aggressive like removing all loose blown in attic insulation which is a lot of money. I'm sure that's one way to do it but not the only way.