Anyone had car wires chewed by rodents, how did you solve it?

[Frag Maniac]

I used to think when people with modern vehicles in our apt parking area said they'd had rodents chew their car wires, it was only happening to late model vehicles with computers. However I noticed today there was rodent droppings in my engine compartment and signs of my spark plug wires having been chewed.

I'm not sure it was necessary but I ordered new wires. The NGKs I use on my 82 Toyota pickup are double insulated with a fiberglass mesh between the two layers, which might be why it appeared only the outer blue layer was chewed. I also ordered some rodent resistant "Honda Tape" which is the size of electrical tape but infused with hot pepper.

I decided to cancel the tape order though as I found a device on Amazon that goes under the hood, attaches to your battery (auto shut off if voltage goes below 10.5 V), has a motion sensor, and flashes bright white LEDs when motion is detected. It also emits a deterring ultrasonic sound. I was wondering if perhaps anyone has tried this device and can tell me if it works.

Reviews on Amazon are very good, and most say if you have a decent battery (which I do), it is very unlikely the device will shut off, even if you don't drive often.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07LCKBGY8/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

[JeffreyP55]

Regardless you have to replace the wires. Tape? Nah...The wires carry ~20kv low current so they may leak high voltage. Buy a BB gun and go rodent hunting.

 

[Frag Maniac]

Regardless you have to replace the wires. Tape? Nah...The wires carry ~20kv low current so they may leak high voltage. Buy a BB gun and go rodent hunting.

Not sure what you mean about the tape, but Honda makes it and it's infused with something too nasty for rodents to want to chew it. It has nothing to do with muting voltage. It's the size of electrical tape and wraps around wires. There are shops selling tons of the stuff because their customers say it works.

I'd love to shoot them, but in the city area I live in it would probably get me a big fine. It would also be very annoying to have to get up in the middle of the night to hunt them, because that's when they do this. Maybe you're just being sarcastic though?

Anyway, was asking about the gizmo on Amazon I linked to, not the tape, as I am cancelling that order as I said. As long as the motion sensor works and it doesn't conk out on me, I could see how bright white flashing LEDs and an ultrasonic sound would deter them. Probably the cheapest, least messy and time consuming way to do it too.

 

[JeffreyP55]

Not sure what you mean about the tape, but Honda makes it and it's infused with something too nasty for rodents to want to chew it. It has nothing to do with muting voltage. It's the size of electrical tape and wraps around wires. There are shops selling tons of the stuff because their customers say it works.

I'd love to shoot them, but in the city area I live in it would probably get me a big fine. It would also be very annoying to have to get up in the middle of the night to hunt them, because that's when they do this. Maybe you're just being sarcastic though?

Anyway, was asking about the gizmo on Amazon I linked to, not the tape, as I am cancelling that order as I said. As long as the motion sensor works and it doesn't conk out on me, I could see how bright white flashing LEDs and an ultrasonic sound would deter them. Probably the cheapest, least messy and time consuming way to do it too.

Hope it works out for you.

 

[Frag Maniac]

I thought I'd keep updating this thread just in case anyone finds it informative or can add any of their own similar experiences. I checked the battery area again today after cleaning it yesterday, and there were just a few more droppings. I purposely avoided leaving any residue of the Pine-Sol I cleaned with just to try and get an idea of how many rodents might be hanging out there. Only a few droppings tells me it might be just one rat or mouse. It's been several months since I closely looked there after having an auto body shop rebuild my rusted battery platform, so it's possible it's just one rodent.

So today I applied a good residue of Pine-Sol everywhere I saw the droppings the first day, which seemed to be almost 1/4 cup worth in my Dustbuster. Pine-Sol is commonly used as a deterring scent for rodents. The Pine-Sol I'm only using as a temporary deterrent until my electronic deterrent device arrives, which should be here Sept 4th. I don't know if anyone here knows how to gauge the size of a rodent by the size of the dropping, but they appear to be roughly 5mm teardrops. On that note, I'll leave you with I don't care if the rodent or rodents shed any tears about being evicted, because at least a nice guy like me isn't using Deacon instead to kill them.

[EDITED]
After looking up rodent size by droppings, it appears what I have is a mouse infestation, or perhaps just one mouse. I don't know whether to be glad about that or worried, as mice are nocturnal and known to be very clever. I know for a fact we have had mice burrowing in our patio garden (opposite side of building from parking area), and the fact that the garden isn't well maintained regularly anymore since the woman taking care of it moved out, may mean the mice are more active now. I've also seen mice enter the building in the summer (even in daytime) via the patio doors when the doors are propped open for ventilation. There's also been evidence they've gotten into our community kitchen, they are bold little suckers. Since COVID and management shutting down our community room and kitchen for social distancing, it could be they are roaming farther now for food to the dumpsters in our alleyway near the parking area, or even scraps of food on the ground that are often left behind by workers on break, or loitering homeless people. The plot thickens.

 

[Blackink]

I've never had a mouse or rodent problem in any of my vehicles until last winter.
It seems a mouse chewed through the hose for the washer fluid in several places!
I hope it doesn't happen again this winter...

 

[thx1138v2]

I have some rural property and we have mouse/rat problems out there. I have found that just putting a saucer of water out will satisfy those little one. I don't know what it is about ignition wires but I've had that problem also. So once when I changed the plug wires I kept the old ones and would throw one on the ground under the engine compartment and they would find that one first and not screw with the ones further up in the engine bay.

I also use some poison out there when I'm not there, which is most of the year. It's amazing how fast the population explodes when there isn't anything to clean them out. I can't find the link for the poison right now but I'll look for it and post again when I find it.

Here is a link: https://www.solutionsstores.com/rats-mice

You'll see on their site that they have the black plastic traps that the rodents can go into to eat the bait/poison. They will ten get really thirsty and go looking for water so they don't die inside the trap.

You might talk to your apartment manager to see if they will put something out for them

BTW, the sonic repulsing gizmos don't work. I saw video of them while running and the mice completely ignored them but they did have an LED to show they were on.

 

[Frag Maniac]

I have some rural property and we have mouse/rat problems out there. I have found that just putting a saucer of water out will satisfy those little one. I don't know what it is about ignition wires but I've had that problem also. So once when I changed the plug wires I kept the old ones and would throw one on the ground under the engine compartment and they would find that one first and not screw with the ones further up in the engine bay.

I also use some poison out there when I'm not there, which is most of the year. It's amazing how fast the population explodes when there isn't anything to clean them out. I can't find the link for the poison right now but I'll look for it and post again when I find it.

Here is a link: https://www.solutionsstores.com/rats-mice

You'll see on their site that they have the black plastic traps that the rodents can go into to eat the bait/poison. They will ten get really thirsty and go looking for water so they don't die inside the trap.

You might talk to your apartment manager to see if they will put something out for them

BTW, the sonic repulsing gizmos don't work. I saw video of them while running and the mice completely ignored them but they did have an LED to show they were on.

The LED s on the one I bought are not just to show it's on, there's two tiny bright white ones as well that flash rapidly. I've also seen a video on the product page with two small rooms built with Plexiglas, one having the device, the other not. The mice quickly fled to the other room. There's also tons of reviews of people verifying it works as advertised, and some had been using it for a long time.

I did speak to my apt manager back when I thought it was rats. She said they've had an exterminator lay traps. I'm going to talk to her again though because due to the small size of the droppings I'm pretty sure it's mice, or even just one mouse. I know they've burrowed in the patio garden on the other side of the building, so maybe some mouse traps there would help.

Leaving an old spark plug wire nearby sounds interesting, but in a mere alleyway parking lot with people coming and going all the time, I doubt it would stay put under my engine, and putting one where it craps by my battery would be like saying, "Go ahead, use my truck as your toilet."

 

[thx1138v2]

You definitely do not want yo put one by your battery. If you are going to use traps, peanut butter is the best bait for the traps.

If they are going after water, you must be in a drought. I've had that also but it was a hose in my washing machine. I put out a saucer of water and they left the new hoses alone. I picked up the saucer after the drought and had no problem since then.

 

[Frag Maniac]

Got the deterrent device and new spark plug wires today. While installing the device I noticed there were other spots with mice droppings I hadn't noticed, on each wheel well, and under my coolant overflow reservoir. Thank god I didn't notice any other wire chewing though.

I Dustbuster vacuumed what droppings I could, then used an old toth brush and lots of blowing to get out the rest. I cleaned those areas with a Pine-Sol/water mix, wiped it down, Then applied a generous coating of strait Pine-Sol with the brush after cleaning it. I then swept all the droppings in my stall and the one next to me.

A guy with a Jetta parks in the one next to me, and he clamed he had no problems with rodents, but his car had a ton of droppings under it, many much bigger than the ones I had in my truck. He claims all of his Jetta's wiring is concealed in boxes, but I doubt it. The gal that parks in the stall on the other side of me sprinkled some kind of powder on the ground all around her vehicle and his, so it looks to me like they both have had such problems.

At any rate, the device seems to be functional, as when I powered it on it went through the sequence of flashing lights. As far as I can tell, when the motion sensor and Ultrasonic emitter are triggered, the middle light flashes green. When it goes back to idle mode, the middle light flashes red and the two outer white lights stop flashing. I also waved my hand around the engine and the white lights started flashing again, so I know the motion sensor works.

All I have to find out now is whether it actually deters them, and whether the device is enough of a drain on my battery to necessitate more frequent drives. I also spoke to our apt manager today and told her they are mice not rats, and that they may be coming from the patio garden on the other side of the building. She said she'd notify the exterminator about it.

If by chance this device doesn't work, I was actually already thinking of using peanut butter as bait, as I've known for some time it's one that works well. I was going to put one on each wheel well, but I don't know why you would say not to put it near the battery. The battery is where the most droppings were, and there is ample flat space for them there.

I'm going to wait until I know they're not coming around anymore before I put the new plug wires on, as I see no signs of arcing. I will be wrapping the chewed parts with electrical tape though.

 

[Deleted member 14196]

Can’t you get Managment to clean up the rodent problem

Sounds like you need more cats roaming the place like in a trailer park. They usually don’t have rat problems

 

[Frag Maniac]

Can’t you get Managment to clean up the rodent problem

Sounds like you need more cats roaming the place like in a trailer park. They usually don’t have rat problems

This is city housing I live in, very low budget, very limited funding. They 've been having exterminators place rat traps in the alleyway for some time, but the manager said she'll see if she can have them place mouse traps in the patio garden on the other side of the building where they've been known to burrow for years.

You can't just bring in an army of cats in a facility like this, it's completely up to the tenants what pets they own, and most have small dogs, or no pets at all. The ones that own cats keep them inside, so that's not a viable solution. There's also only 6 parking spaces here for 100 tenants, so most don't own cars or care about what goes on in the alleyway out back where we park.

A lot of the solutions suggested here are more for a rural setting. Maybe I should have made it more clear that this is definitely a place in the middle of the city, in fact it's not far from the heart of it's downtown. It's definitely not a part of town you find trailer parks.

One thing that could be stirring up more rodent activity lately, other than a huge influx of homeless people and the streets around the city getting filthy, as is the case lately with a lot of cities, they are replacing both elevators in our building. That makes for a lot of noise at times in the underbelly of the building. It started back in April, and they said it will take at least 3-4 months per elevator car. On top of that, the dumb clucks, knowing it was an old elevator design they were trying to remove, experimented with the removal procedure. This caused them to waste at least a month trying to uninstall it the wrong way. They finally called the manufacturer of the old one, whom told them they were trying to take the wrong car out first.

 

[Frag Maniac]

Well, today I checked my engine bay and parking stall for more rodent crap. There was some under the back of the truck, but none in the engine bay. So it appears the device is working. The wires were also long enough to mount it on the firewall hanging from some small metal hose lines, right in between the engine and brake master cylinder. I also stuck a little awning above it I fashioned from the bottom of a tin pie pan with high temp Permatex silicone (was worried the old hood seal might not keep all the water out).

I also took down my spare tire from under the back of the truck to see if there were any droppings on it or in the wheel. There was only a few droppings on top, where I put a circular piece of industrial grade close cell foam to pad the tire from the truck frame and keep critters from getting inside the wheel. I also had a vinyl tire cover on it, and no critters or crap inside, but I tossed it due to it having torn badly. I figure it might have been something that kicked up off the road and hit it, as there was no evidence of a critter having gotten in there and clawed it's way out.

I had patched the cover tear with lots of Gorilla Tape, which held well. The tire was immaculate, but there was some rusting on the wheel, which has never been used since I bought it for the spare. This is partly why I tossed the cover, I figured maybe the thin fleece lining of it was collecting moisture at night and causing the rust. At any rate I wire brushed the rust, and did some touch up on it with some black Rustoleum Rust Reformer, which dries like a satin black paint.

I also checked where those traps were the exterminator put down in the alleyway. They're in one of the middle plant beds that are right next to the building and line the parking area. So they're basically right behind the guy's car next to me that had big rat size droppings in his stall. As soon as I went out the back door to head that way, I saw a rat move toward either that bed or the one behind my truck. I'm assuming it went to the one with the rat traps in it, because that bed also has two big holes and a little one in the ground. The biggest hole is right against the building. I'm going to talk to the manager about those holes, because I get the feeling they've got a big nest down there somewhere.

 

[Deleted member 14196]

You know that rat trapping paper works really well too with all the sticky tape on it. I killed a entire family of rats once they broke into my house from a broken grill outside using that stuff years ago.

 

[Frag Maniac]

You know that rat trapping paper works really well too with all the sticky tape on it. I killed a entire family of rats once they broke into my house from a broken grill outside using that stuff years ago.

Well the main issue seems to be those burrowing holes I mentioned, especially the two bigger ones. I have a feeling the one right up against the building is their main nest, as it's the biggest hole and just seems like a more likely place for one. The other big hole that's a bit smaller might be an escape route. It could even be the droppings in my engine bay were from smaller, younger rats, not mice. They were tear drop shaped droppings though, and the rat ones tend to be a longer more symmetric shape.

It seems all the so called exterminator has done is place two rat traps in that particular garden bed, and I know it's not from a pro exterminator business, because it has a label on it saying it's property of the housing authority. I know how their pest control people work. I, as well as other tenants, one year had tiny sawtooth beetles climbing up the building plumbing during a long dry spell, then lurking around our kitchen sink area. All the guy did was hand me some info on how to keep them away, no loose food scraps, or especially loose coffee or tea. And this was after he looked over my whole kitchen and could see I had nothing out in the open.

I've done some reading on common ways to deal with burrowing rats, and it shouldn't take long to exterminate a rat burrow. There's even non toxic ways to do it by packing their burrows with dry ice, which when it melts suffocates them with carbon dioxide. If they refuse to handle this problem properly, I may contact the health department to see if they can force their hand.

 

[Crnomerec]

The only way to get rid of animal attacks is to put some rags of other animal. For instance rags of your dog. When rodent smell other animal they will gone. Good luck.

 

[Ralston18]

@Frag Maniac

Try cat/predator urine.

FYI:

https://www.commandpestcontrol.com/...me from your,heels and seek shelter elsewhere.

Did not seem to bother the squirrels much but the chipmunks disapeared.

 

[Frag Maniac]

@Frag Maniac

Try cat/predator urine.

FYI:

https://www.commandpestcontrol.com/natural-rodent-repellents-can-use/#:~:text=Ask for some from your,heels and seek shelter elsewhere.

Did not seem to bother the squirrels much but the chipmunks disapeared.

I think it's looking like it's under control now. For the last 3 days since installing the deterrent device there's been no new droppings in the engine bay. I also moved my truck forward a good ways so the security light on the back of the building shines under the back of it. Previously I always backed all the way in, and the overhang of the bumper plus the cement wheel stop at the back end of the stall kept it pretty dark under the back of the truck. That was where most of the fresh droppings were, but now they aren't showing up there anymore.

I will still be talking to management about attacking the actual burrows vs just putting out traps, and I'm also going to wait a whole week after the device was installed to put the new plug wires on, just to make sure it isn't the smell of the Pine-Sol coating I applied deterring them. I also applied a coating of Pine-Sol on top of the industrial grade closed cell foam I use between the spare tire and the truck frame.