Oh rats

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Riji64

New Member
Joined
Dec 26, 2023
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3
Location
Wales
Car
W639 2014 LWB
My members pic. shows 2 Vito's. One a new to us 2014 116 LWB, the other a 2006 115 SWB waiting to be taken away by the insurance who have written it off. A rat chewed through enough wiring to wreck it. Don't leave ANY food in any car as they don't need encouragement. Ironically the guy we bought the newer one from had his BMW written off for the same reason!
 
Read somewhere that it is not just with the wiring components but also with coolant pipes made from certain materials containing soy.

Just dont leave an opened packet of prawn crackers lying around or the vehicle will be reduced to a shell as the ravenous rodents cant resist a good munch.

K
 
My members pic. shows 2 Vito's. One a new to us 2014 116 LWB, the other a 2006 115 SWB waiting to be taken away by the insurance who have written it off. A rat chewed through enough wiring to wreck it. Don't leave ANY food in any car as they don't need encouragement. Ironically the guy we bought the newer one from had his BMW written off for the same reason!
When i was doing a bit of an engine bay clean i found some puppy food between the chrome inlet runners on my Alfa. I thought it looked familiar - it's the food we put out each day for the hedgehogs! So clearly a mouse had been pinching the food from the back garden and travelling about 30m through a gate to where i keep the Alfa. The cheek of it! Thankfully no evidence of wire munching and ive since replaced all the cloth loom tape in the bay so hopefully that will disuade them.
 
The wife left the red plastic/wax wrapper from a Babybel cheese in the passenger door pocket. Not sure how long the mouse was in there, a few days at most, but the red wrapper had been dragged onto the passenger footwell carpet and chewed into a thousand pieces. Further investigation revealed mouse droppings on the rear seats, looked under the boot floor and the yellow vests for going to France were in a thousand pieces too, looks like a nest was being built with them.
Opened the bonnet to find the insulation under the bonnet had been chewed as well as the insulation around the engine itself. Lifted the plastic engine cover to find a nest was in the process of being built underneath it.
This coincides with a 2 or 3 day period where the alarm had been going off at night for no apparent reason at the time.
The car was booked into the dealers for the Nox sensor issues and it turned out they were on back order, had a courtesy car for 6 weeks, when mine was returned it was mouse free!
 
It's been an issue for nearly a decade now. And this isn't just about "food in cars"

Wiring and plastics were changed to "Eco-friendly" bioplastics a decade or so ago which is particularly appealng to both rats and Squirrels. (We have a lot of squirrels, and foxes, in rural South West London.)

I know someone who had a new Porsche Cayenne off the road for more than four months when the wee devils ate some plastics which weren't meant to be "consumable."

You can spray the general area with Chili flavoured anti-Squirrel spray, but how long does such a spray last? Who knows?
 
This was an XJS parked in the back of my shop. Some manufacturers used peanut oil to run copper wiring through insulation. They made quite a nest. I also found shedded snake skin so there must have been a real party going on.
 

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This was an XJS parked in the back of my shop. Some manufacturers used peanut oil to run copper wiring through insulation. They made quite a nest. I also found shedded snake skin so there must have been a real party going on.
In Texas, I'm surprised that you didn't find a full sized live snake !



Screenshot 2024-01-05 at 17.11.33.png
 
You would have known if I did when you heard the distant screams of what sounded like a 6 year old girl, coming from the west.
Nah, that "concealed carry" license of yours solves such a problem

You Old Boys make the best of "wild life" compared to us Wussy Brits.

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My neighbour has just paid a £400 plus bill at VW. Some critter had chewed through his Adblue lines and a few bits of the system.
 
Hi & welcome from a fellow Vito owner. We've also had some problems with rats, and one did get into the garage by chewing through the rubber sealant strip at the bottom of one of the sectional doors. Problem solved:

Capture.JPG

Before I got that they were bold as brass and you could get to within a couple of metres of them in broad daylight:

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Hi & welcome from a fellow Vito owner. We've also had some problems with rats, and one did get into the garage by chewing through the rubber sealant strip at the bottom of one of the sectional doors. Problem solved:

View attachment 151497

Before I got that they were bold as brass and you could get to within a couple of metres of them in broad daylight:
Very Nice! But this would be better. 😉 🙂
20231108_191632.jpg
 
You know I grew up in London and moved here in my 20's? Straight outta Acton
Yep, well discussed. I've got family who did the same.
Your Squirrel problems are bigger than ours.....

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My neighbour has just paid a £400 plus bill at VW. Some critter had chewed through his Adblue lines and a few bits of the system.
A whole new way to achieve AdBlue delete
 
What I found most fascinating, is that in the video the mouse seemed aware that he was being watched from the camera
- Insomuch as he kept pausing to stare directly at the camera every now and again ( as if to gauge whether what was watching him presented an immediate threat or not).

🤔 Or maybe that's just me ?
 

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