My '99 CRV is having a major rodent problem. About two weeks ago squirrels chewed through the fuel line and last night, they got to the plug wires. These things were easily replaced, but just curious what you all do for rodent control for your older vehicles.
"accidental" coolant leak
I've seen cars come in with dryer sheets stuffed in various places throughout the engine bay.
Honda rat tape.
Shotgun.
Peppermint extract. They hate that E36 M3, they'll just berkeley off. Done.
Cats
Rat snake
I never got how humans always default to killing everything. Why cause unnecessary harm in this life. Peppermint oil just works.
In reply to sesto elemento:
We're good at it. I keep a number of bird and squrriel feeders on the opposite end of my property and nothing spends much time near the cars.
I feel like if I discharged a firearm in my very suburban, warily elderly neighborhood, this could very well be my last post. I'll try peppermint oil.
In reply to floatingdoc:
Have you tried trapping the cats?
Peppermint oil, huh. I wonder how much a 55 gallon drum of it is?
In reply to sesto elemento:
Fallen nature? It's been talked about. Are you being contrite?
I was living with mice getting into my stuff. Cohabitated in my workshop for a long time.
When I smelled stale urine I decided to open a couple drawers full of my bigger power tools and found them both completely full of nests made from my life-jacket.
But I just lived with it.
Then they peed and pooped on my notebooks and all over my work area. So the whole shed smelled so bad of mouse pee, it made me gag. And who knows what diseases or bacteria are all over my oft-used stuff?
That's when I decided killing them with mouse traps was in my best interest and the other passive methods weren't cutting it. When it became unhealthy is when I drew the line.
nutherjrfan wrote: In reply to sesto elemento: Fallen nature? It's been talked about. Are you being contrite?
Not trying to be anything, my religion is simple.... try to be amazing, try not to do harm, if something or someone intentionally tries to do you harm, then you can kill it. If it's just trying not to starve or freeze to death, taking it's existence as punishment seems less than compassionate.
I get it, the little bastards ate my brand new bride seats and the chassis harness in my mkiv supra one year. I just found a better way.
In reply to sesto elemento:
This pepermint oil, SE, where do you get it? Is there some special concentration/type? How do you use/apply it? Does it make the car "minty-fresh?"
Squirrels did about $200 worth of damage and a day's work to my RAV4 and totaled the Camry. Feeding them away from the vehicles just makes more squirrels.
In reply to sesto elemento:
Not to be overly philosophical but something tells me your humanity or empathy has its limits. Do you swat mosquitoes in your bedroom? Houseflies in your kitchen?
Mammals must be protected but are you a very strict vegetarian?
If you eat fish or chicken or pork or steak, bacon... well some would say that's far more inhumane than setting a mouse trap.
All I'm saying is it's a very slippery slope to remotely place judgement on another person especially if what YOU may do is just another version of the killing in question.
Not judging you or your mindset or trying to start a fight, I'm just saying it's a slippery slope and those that DO judge (not you) better have their own lives in order. And truth be told, this is bringing up memories of a thread posted here that devolved into guys that drive trucks being labeled as evil and how crazy it is to judge someone when the cyclist can just as easily call you a serial polluter diving your little Civic.
(Wow, did I just get off topic?)
Of course it has limits, everything does. Do I not walk on grass to keep from harming a single blade, berkley no. I've got my hk vp9 on my hip as I type this, but yea, I relocate spiders (and often flies) rather than killing them and such. I'm not judging anyone at all, just advocating a peaceful approach when available and reasonable. I'm not super worried about to be honest.
Let's not forget that killing them doesn't necessarily prevent them from eating your wiring harness first, if anything the bait food is a food source that attracts them, getting them to berkley off protects your property better on top of being more humane.
Dr. Hess wrote: In reply to sesto elemento: This pepermint oil, SE, where do you get it? Is there some special concentration/type? How do you use/apply it? Does it make the car "minty-fresh?" Squirrels did about $200 worth of damage and a day's work to my RAV4 and totaled the Camry. Feeding them away from the vehicles just makes more squirrels.
Whole foods market has it.
In reply to sesto elemento:
Well said.
In reply to captdownshift:
Tried to reply to this, and (in classic noob fashion) accidentally deleted my own post!
In reply, yes, I trapped about 16 or so over about 10 month period. They all were transported to the shelter, and almost all were young enough to be good candidates for home placement.
The trapping, along with other attrition thinned them out. It's been about 1 1/2 years since I stopped trapping, and although there's a few left around, I can live with it.
There is one that I would really like to trap, since I know that it's suffering. It's an intact male, very underweight, and obviously infected with a severe case of scabies. I've been practicing in this county for ten years and every scabies infected adult cat that I've tested has been positive for both feline leukemia and immunodeficiency viruses. I've only seen it a couple of times, and it's far too wise to ever let itself get trapped. I would cross my back deck every day, until it saw me looking at it one time. I started to put food out the next day, but it changed its routine and I didn't see it again for three months (and never behind the house again).
Now that I've hijacked the thread, hopefully I can redeem myself by reposting my suggestion: a motion activated water sprinkler. The brand I am familiar with is Scarecrow. They run about $50-60, but I've seen them listed on ebay for about $20. I don't know if those are the name brand or knock offs.
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