City and country relatives:

Toyota Tacoma always parked outside under a good quality tent on a concrete slab. Rural setting. Driven every other day or so. Lifted hood to remove trickle charger when I saw something scurry further back into the engine bay. I could see the rat's tail as it went over the bell housing. I fired up the engine and tried to see if it jumped out. I did not see. So I went on my way.

I checked several more times during the day and no sign of the critter. No sign of a nest or chewed wires.

Bought some traps. Set them up nearby. Left the hood up (no privacy any more pal). Could not find any mothballs, so I bought toilet bowl tablets and put them on a pie tin on top of the intake manifold. I had old dryer fabric sheets tucked in the bay, but they obviously didn't work.

Any other suggestions? No plans for any pets. I also have a 911 parked in similar conditions. But driven less often.

neighbor who had more experience dealing with this problem -- he was a home builder and long time landlord/property manager -- told me the rats can jump back quicker than the trap can trap.

He suggested instead of the traditional (and worthless cheese) I bait the trap with a smear of peanut butter -- just a tiny amount -- and put the trap on top of the enamel paint of the clothes dryer. This is a very slick surface. Caught one rat that night and the 2nd one the night after. Of course I wiped down the dryer and the washer afterwards with disenfecant.

Oh, the rat problem came about because of some home demolishing in the neighborhood which among other things had old outbuilding being knocked down and piles of tree limbs and firewood piles removed. This drove some rats to find new shelter. How they were getting into my garage was they were coming in through the backdoor's doggie door into the garage.

If you live in a rural setting in which you are always at risk of a new infestation of rats, you can try all kinds of repellents, magic elxars, but the only sure fire way is to find a successful trapping technique -- proven successful by capturing one or more rats and right away too, not over a span of months cause this just means you caught a slow/sick rat -- and use this all the time.

Found these ideas: Mothballs in a container placed under the engine; spray the engine compartment, wiring and hoses with either peppermint oil or Pine Sol; keep hood open; place lights over the compartment; set traps nearby. Hard to find mothballs. Where do I get peppermint oil?

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Tony in Whittier
Found these ideas: Mothballs in a container placed under the engine; spray the engine compartment, wiring and hoses with either peppermint oil or Pine Sol; keep hood open; place lights over the compartment; set traps nearby. Hard to find mothballs. Where do I get peppermint oil?

Depending upon where a google search takes you, peppermint oil is not effective, as are other less than lethal chemicals. I would not use poisons though no matter how effective they are.

Even if peppermint oil or mothballs or whatever keeps the rats out of the car you have to then worry about them getting into, gnawing their way into your house, or other out buildings on your property (or next door to your property) and making a nice home in which they'll produce more rats.

An aggressive campaign of trapping -- dead rats can't breed -- and eliminating the things that attract them in the first place like leaving pet food out, improperly storing pet or animal feed, improperly stacking firewood, or improperly stacking/storing other wood like cut lumber, having piles/mounds of plant litter, brush about, or leaving fallen trees around, etc.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/31/2015 02:20PM by MarcW. (view changes)