Rats will die!!!
 

We've had 6 days of rain and today was the only day with no rain. We're suppose to get three more days of rain so I decided to jump in my boxster for a quick spin into town. I get in it and turn it over. Not even a click! I'm thinking the battery must be dead or maybe the immobilizer got wet. Check the carpet under the seat and it's dry. I figured it wouldn't be wet because I poked a hole in the floor pan incase water did make inside the cabin. Ok, I'll check the battery even though usually you'll get some kind of click. I open the frunk and find a bunch of torn up insulation and droppings. Rat+no start=something's F'd up. I'm pissed but I move on and jump the box. Still nothing! I look under the frunk, dash and seat and don't see any chewed wires. I open the trunk and find the damage.
http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/x...psyhen9zq3.jpg
I got somewhat lucky that it looks like the soon to be dying a slow very painful death rat only chewed the rear harness. It didn't chew on the engine or too much of the main harness.

http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/x...pswruhn9zz.jpg
Someone I was texting about this just sent me this pic of the problem he's having with his boxster. I guess it could be worse

OMG! What a mess, those damn critters! And the 2nd pic is just awful. What has been seen cannot be unseen! You sure it was a rat?

Holy Crap Ratman

Rat bastards! They get into everything and shred it up.

We have horses, chickens and a pig. With those critters, we also have rats. I have battled them for years. They have damaged wires in my daughter's Jetta and the Boxster. I hate rats. I have traps out for them as I type. I feel your pain.

I'd put his head on a stick as a warning to the others!

Never tempt worse.

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My Grandson who lives in Texas had his wiring harness eaten by bunny rabbits.

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wow, wow, wow! That rat bastard must have needed some copper supplement! And the oil and antifreeze in the tail pipe. I've seen that once before. Sick.

They're not interested in the wire, just the insulation.

My baby is running again!! The damage wasn't too bad as the little critter only chewed the rear harness and didn't touch anything else. I got lucky and it helps that I have a few boxsters to pull some parts from. It only took about an hour to fix.

My wife has five horses and 8 chickens to clean up after them. We have two horses that drop half of their food on the ground and the chickens usually eat most of it. I'm sure the mice and rats get the rest. The snake population exploded this past year and I hadn't seen any signs of mice or rats in a long time. We have so many snakes that one fell on my head the other night as I was reaching in the hen house to collect eggs. Talk about a feeling that will make you pucker up and curse like a drunken sailor. I'm always cautious about reaching in when it's dark. I've already had a few times where I've reached in at night expecting to grab eggs and instead feeling snake. One falling on you at night is a whole new level of creepiness. Anyway, I thought with sooo many snakes around my vehicles were safe from a rat or mice infestation. As a precaution I had left some rat poison in the trunk area. It was at least a year old and probably not as effective as it could have been. I don't know how long that rat was in my boxster, but I'd guess a max of 3-4 days. I'm not sure what the average poo rate is for a rat, but there was about 20 turds in the frunk. It probably didn't take him but a few minutes to chew up those wires though. It looks like it ate all the poison I had in the trunk and I think I can smell the beginning of a dead rat in the front bumper area. I've been reading up on this kind of damage and how to prevent it. I'm thinking the poison is good to have to keep them from moving in for too long but mothballs were said to help keep them away because they don't like the smell.

the problem with rat poison is that they will die eventually and who knows where and that is after they cause the damage, traps are better.

We have this same kind of rodent here in Texas....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCI18qAoKq4

Glad you got her running again. I was going to offer you the harness from my parts car if we didn't hear from you soon. :D

The theory is the poison makes them thirsty and they go outside searching for water. By the time they find water, the Coumadin / Warfarin, errr rat poison has bled them out.

3 yrs ago I was diagnosed with a blood clot in ea lung and a third in my leg. I was immediately hospitalized. The lady DR came in and told me she was putting me on a Coumadin regiment. I smiled when she said that and she asked if I knew what Coumadin was. I said yes, it's rat poison. Luckily I only needed to be on the rat poison for 6 mo and have been clot free since.

I always use the good old spring traps with peanut butter - they work and there is no chance of pets / wild animals getting poisoned by eating the carcass.

LoL
Texans always have a bigger story.

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You'll be needing a spanking for that.......:D

"All right, we'll call it a draw."

Traps + peanut butter are very attractive to rodents and curious dogs.
The warfarin in a dead rat is insufficient to kill a cat ,dog or bird.
Some of the warfarin is degraded as a non toxic metabolite. It gets distributed throughout the body so the animal would need to consume many ,many carcasses to get to LD50. Long before that happened ,the animal would be satiated. Eating sufficient poisoned carrion to get LD50 of warfarin would probably introduce other toxins to the feeding animal and prevent it from revisiting the carcass.
Warfarin is only a risk to those who eat the bait.
Whatever you use, check them frequently - the consequences of leaving rotting carcasses around is stomach churning and also a danger to your health.

Gelbster, very impressive I never hear someone talk about LD away from work. Alcohol is also LD of 50

I loaded the car with moth balls tonight. Two in frunk on sides of battery, two in trunk and two in cabin. Any place I'm missing for a good place to put moth balls. Had a family in cabin filter last year. Stuffed rags in muffler.

On top of the under-body panels.

Anker

The smell of the moth balls would drive me out of the car too! And aren't they toxic?

SAME PROBLEM _ I just opened my trunk this morning(2/6/19) and found a big nest on the passenger side. The rat or squirrel ripped up my paper towel roll plus there was ripped up insulation in the nest...WTF. The car runs OK so I don't think there is any wiring damage. Nothing looks damaged in the trunk so I don't know where the insulation comes from. I guess today I will jack up the back and see if there is any damage underneath?? We have a nice spring day today so I guess the spring will solve the problem. Can't put her in my one car garage stuffed with two MGBs.

Can I unsee that photo, please?

I understand dryer sheets work well too

I've since switched to irish spring soap bars. They smell a lot better than moth balls.

Seriously? Is that based on good information from someone who knows?

And (sorry if stupid question)...where exactly do you place them?

Rats can cause a hell of a lot of damage, when I was in the USAF I worked on the ground navigation systems, we went to the site because of an outage and found rats had unplugged the antenna unit, eaten all the tech data books, a hard hat, and damaged the main antenna feed cable the ground sheild braid is only thing saved us.

Crazy.

I had a friend tell me about it and I haven't had a problem since using them. I'm not sure if it really works or just coincidence. On a boxster you'll want to put a bar in each trunk, the cabin and it wouldn't hurt to put one in the engine compartment. Obviously you'll want to remove that last one if you start driving it. The engine compartment would be if you're letting it sit for awhile. I find another big determent is to drive the vehicle around every few days. I've also found that they like to build nest in glove boxes

I work at Ford Heavy Truck dealership and we see rat damage all the time.... Not cheap on the average.

At a dealer/auto trade show I saw this electronic box that you mount in your car. Low draw on the system, and emits a sound that rodents don't like. I wish I still had the flyer for the company, but I tossed it a while ago. Although there is products like this all over Amazon with decent reviews. Might give that a try :D