If this is true, how can you park your car on the street? I would think that this is an argument in favor of getting a building permit for a garage.

Mike

 

Skeeter,

I can relate, on two different levels, to your dilemma. First, born raised and educated in Berkeley. While I love my heritage, I could no longer deal with the direction of the city. So, we relocated to the Lake Tahoe area and became residents of the Silver State.

The second "touch point" is my episode with rats and field mice up here. I too discovered that they enjoyed the occasional snack under the hood. I did a bit of research and discovered if you place moth *****, in a mesh sack under the hood, this keeps them away.

I subsequently sold the affected vehicle and can't say, with any level of certainty, that this worked. However, given the trouble you're having, I would give it a shot.

 

Seems insane to me - Surely your local council (sorry, not sure of the correct term in the US) don't want rats on their streets?! It's a health (and wealth!) hazard. Won't they despatch an exterminator to look around the public areas? Isn't that we citizens pay our taxes for?

Hopefully it all gets sorted to your satisfaction - my xkr is sitting outside under a car cover right now and you have me worried!

 

Seems to me that it is time to talk with a professional rat exterminator who has direct experience with car problems. There are plenty of exterminators in Oakland area.
I also like the idea of poison. No doubt you can legally put poison out in the confines of your home. By the same reasoning you should be able to put poison in the confines of your car, certainly the interior thereof.
Consider this also: most cars now have at least a partial belly pan beneath the motor. This provides a very nice confined/safe space for rats. There are plenty of entry points from the rear, which would be difficult to seal completely. Were it my car I would consider the engine compartment a "confined area" and freely sprinkle rat poison onto the belly pan. Who is to know?
After the rats were gone, I'd consider removing the belly pan and leaving it off as long as I lived and parked in rat territory.

 

A Ziploc sounds a bit crazy doesn't it? Depending on if you have an appropriate area I have a foolproof solution for keeping rodents out.

I have a small collection of a few cars that I rarely drive. To keep them clean and safe I keep them in clear plastic car enclosures that uses a small blower to keep them inflated. Granted mine are inside but this might be worth you looking into if you have an area that offers some shade or protection.

 

Parking on the street, I can't get away with much by way of protection (protective parking enclosures, etc.).

The good and bad news: Jaguar told my insurance adjuster that they need to go to extreme measures to fix the car properly: The engine will need to be removed in order to replace heat shielding and look for more damaged wires. Once the motor is removed they'll have a definite idea of what needs to be done.

While good news, for some reason I'm not happy at this outcome. I guess on some level I'm not thrilled about having such extensive work done on the car. Makes it feel (emotionally) like less of a special, pristine car, with a probable hit to resale value...

On the positive side, I already heard from the claims adjuster, who went and looked at the car and talked with my service rep. Impressive, considering I filed the claim Friday PM and he called back Monday at 2. He related what the dealership told me about the needed repairs and said they'd cover all the work needed to get the car back to 100%. Really nice guy, no static at all. So at least no tug of war between a quick versus thorough fix.

Absolutely no time estimate at all re: completion. Not even 'weeks' versus 'a month' or longer... No fun.

And lets not forget that I'll need to figure out how to protect my leased Fusion and the crappy rental Jag provided in the meanwhile, to say nothing of keeping the XKR safe once I get her back. Just what I needed, a battle with unseen rodents who may number in the hundreds. My kingdom for a closed garage!

I'll try & find a way to post pictures as the dealer sends them. The few I already have are pretty hair raising.

Wish me luck, keep the advice coming,

Skeeter

 

Skeeter:

Have you considered MOVING.

 

Build the carport, and add a wall of flames around it (which can be switched on & off to drive the car out). The gas might get expensive over time, but as a bonus you could enjoy free rat bbq year round!

 

Holy Crap - what a story. Commiserations to the OP.

I can't be the only person who read it, then immediately went and checked their car ??

Mine is in the garage, under a cover, but I pulled-off the plastic engine covers and the trunk carpet to check everywhere.
Fortunately no problems were found - but to keep it that way I then deployed the optional RDS (Rodent Deterrent System)....

 

Get a portable car port and have strong tarp on the floor?

That all sounds so very nasty.

 

RDSs don't always work. Buyer beware that individual models vary greatly in efficacy.

 

I have 2-4 cats here, that i feed very well ( ham, milk) , I hope they will do the jobs for rats....

 

I miss my beloved departed Siamese RDS system, the most effective killer I've ever witnessed. Though she weighed at most 8 pounds and was very small in stature, she had no sense of her diminutive size and would take on ANYTHING. The most frightening instance was when she left me a midsize raccoon in the bathroom, very much alive but trapped in the bathroom by her guarding the door. With the raccoon hiding under my wall-mounted toilet, shenanigans ensued when I got home after a long day to hit the shower… sur-prise! Did the same thing with a rat earlier in fact...

Unfortunately, my two RDS systems are strictly indoors, and I couldn't have a cat patrol the street anyways, with cars and dogs, etc.

I did visit the Jag in the shop today and am amazed at what the xkr looks like with the engine and transmission removed. Really shockingly high-tech underbody and engine bay. Awesome heat shielding and underbody/exhaust design. Dealership is really are going the whole 9 yards to make the car absolutely 100% as new, which is a relief.

Meanwhile, these rodents continue to attack my Ford fusion. Yesterday they attacked it three hours after I got home. That was the last straw, time to get ugly here.

A trip to Home Depot and a bag full of various traps and implements of rodent destruction later, I think I have a pretty good set up under the hood of the Ford lying in wait. Several glue traps in extraordinarily tight areas were only a Rat/mouse size animal could get but where they've left rat sh*t before, a couple traditional mouse traps in other very very tight areas where no cat, possum, raccoon could get to, and we will see what tomorrow brings…

While of course I have no expectation of killing every rodent that poses a future threat, at least after a day or two of setting traps, I may have a sense of what I'm up against. So far I like the idea of saying to the city: fine, here's your stupid car port, now watch me put up a couple "temporary" covers like the one bluebird suggests? Line and seal to the floor and unless the buggers eat through the tent, this seems like it might do the job... Of course I'm sure there's a city regulation preventing them, but at that point bring it on!

Then as far as my traps, there is this: what do I do when I open the hood tomorrow morning and find two or three mice or rats stuck in the glue traps but alive? I shudder at the thought of how to bring about a quick and painless death without resorting to brutal means... A hammer?! No, don't I have it in me... I wouldn't want the devils to die a slow death of starvation by just throwing the trash in the garbage either. Plus with my luck they'd only get out somehow and eat all my trash and infest my garbage as well :-) Drowning? Putting them in a bag and running them over? Ugh, I'll stop, but you see that NONE of this is fun!

Stay tuned for the next exciting chapter of "Skeeter Versus the Rodents",

Skeeter

 

I would think they'd die pretty quick from immobilization and muscle wasting. One reason falls in the elderly are so dangerous is that prolonged immobilization causes muscle breakdown, which releases creatine kinase into the blood stream and quickly damages the kidneys. Animals--rats or people--will die from immobilization long before they starve or dehydrate.

*edit: but that's just a guess. I'm just trying to be reassuring

 

First advice to the OP, MOVE!!! My new employer has hinted that there may be future work in CA and I told him flat out it would be on TDY terms or find somebody else, because I'm not moving there. If I wanted to live in a place where the government has a permanent cranial-rectal inversion issue, I would have stayed in England.

As for the rodents, BTDT. The little buggers got comfy on top of the cabin air filter of my truck. When the weather got damp the stench was dreadful. I now have smelly dryer sheets placed under the hood and that seems to discourage them.

My Jag lives inside and the garage has traps and dryer sheets. The only things that got killed in the electronic trap were some large cockroaches. Never actually killed any mice or rats but the hint must have been taken, either that or one of the local feral cats helped me out.

The funniest thing was that when I put on the heat, the mice (or maybe just one mouse) moved to my neighbour's garage which is cleaner than some hospitals. My neighbour was mortified to have suffered a mouse invasion, while I had a major straight face issue given all the stuff I keep in mine.

 

Several years ago mice got in our garage and chewed on the XJ8's ignition cables. It was a daily driver so it hadn't been sitting. Fortunately the damage was minor. Our other car wasn't bothered.
Prior to that, we had a cat and didn't have any mice or chipmunks around. We now keep several baited traps in the garage and also replaced the garage door with a tighter sealing model.
BTW, Denver International airport has a major problem with car wiring being damaged in their outdoor parking lots. It is caused by a large population of rabbits! Last I heard, they had tried a number of solutions without success.

Good luck with your problem.

 

Alright, sorry to keep ressurecting this thread, but I promised I'd keep you all up to date...

Dealership still has the car. Sigh... Seems like months since I've driven her.

On the rat front, due to reasons completely beyond my comprehension, ever since I've started to bait my daily driver (which was attacked also, just mild damage to the hood heat shielding), the rats have not reappeared. At least they haven't been caught in any of the half dozen traps in the engine bay, nor have they done any further damage to insulation or wires.

So now I'm really stumped. Have they passed through my area, now safe for the Jag when it is finished and all fixed? Seems like a HELL of a gamble.

On the other hand, as I've said before, all experts (from professors to exterminators) have told me that the ONLY effective protection is a tightly sealed garage. None of the professional or folk deterrents work. And since I can't build an enclosed garage (sorry to repeat myself here), I'm torn as to what to do.

If they leave my Ford Fusion alone, do I assume the Jag is OK? Maybe put traps all over the engine bay also, and drive/check it every day? Gawd, I'd hate to deal with the insurance company if they do more damage...

So kind of in a holding pattern. Locked up, no solutions because for now it APPEARS that the problem has gone away. I did have the Ford washed several times since the attack on it, maybe the lack of rat scent on it is buying me some time?

Anyway, I'm at a total loss as to what to do. Dying to get some time in a high HP rear wheel drive car again, but TOTALLY lacking confidence that she'll be safe here @ the house.

Nothing further to report,

Skeeter

 

Thanks for the update....any word on how much damage was done, and time to completion to get the Jag back?

 

Do you ever eat in your car?

 

I never even drink WATER in my car

No, I keep her maniacally clean, inside and out. Rat nests excepted...

I haven't had an update from the shop in a while, so I'm going to take a half day and head over to San Francisco to take a look and some pictures. Last photos I got were of an empty engine bay: no motor or transmission. Very strange in there with no motor.

Really @ a loss as to how to protect the thing once it's back. I wish someone made a 'bouncy-castle' car cover that inflated and let you drive in and zip it shut! Of course the rats would probably chew through it, but @ least I'd know they were on the attack if I found a hole and it started leaking air LOL.

Skeeter