Rats!

I live in a heavily wooded area and have been fighting with rats and mice in my Tundra for a couple years now. I decided to place my wildlife cam in the engine bay yesterday night and got a look at one——a big one! Anyone know what kind of rat it might be?



So far I havent had any significant damage from them, but I worry its only a matter of time. Typically its some urine, poop, and grease marks on the engine cover and no where else. Happens whether I drive or don't drive the truck, warm or cold weather.... so frustrating.

I've tried peppermint/cinnamon oils, ultrasonics, snap traps (seemed to bring more) and now I have succomed to just leaving the hood up. I've sealed off the cab after having some issues last fall on my cabin air filter. Maybe I just need to get some feral cats

I want to leave the cam in the engine bay one night to see if leaving the hood up is actually preventing them from coming into the compartment

 

Cats worked for me. The rats weren't in my truck, just a shed, so good luck, friend.

 

Need to build an electrified moat around the truck... jk but damn that's gross.

 

Predator scents are usually good deterrents. Cat pee, or fresh snake skins might work. Possibly snake poo as well.

 

Ha! I'm about there I swear. Bothers me too... seeing the video made it feel more real.

Good tip! I might have to try this out, maybe spraying around my driveway first

 

Have you tried poison bait stations?

 

Set up a bunch of traps, poison stations, and take a leak on your tires each night.

 

How did you seal off your cab? I’ve had one get in my cab recently. I left poison out under the hood and found the sucker dead in my cabin filter but there were also signs of him foraging through the storage box under the back seat.

 

I put a screen over the air intake on the passenger side. Just removed the windshield wipers and that lower windshield cowl....they tore my ass up one night. Chewed all sorts of wiring in my Tacoma the same night.

 

Not sure if there is enough poison in the world to kill all the rats.

Gets some cats...or move.

 

Probably a shelter with some felines who would love to have another shot at a life.

Save a deserving cat or two and save your truck wires.

 

That works great if you don’t have dogs. Mine would run a cat off if I got one.

 

Then you need to train your dogs.

 

Yeah gotta train em. I have a 200lb dog and the cat rules the roost. Partly cause the cat is an alpha. The other is because the dog knows better.

Edit - Not an easy switch to flip though if your dog is set in their ways. Much easier at a young age to train that out of em. Shock collar training may do the trick though.

 

Bait stations. You don’t want them nesting under your house

 

You need something like this:



Last year I killed more than 100 mice and 13 chipmunks with a bucket after they trashed the cabin filter in our 4Runner..

 

I have tried this bucket trap and most everything else suggested out there. Killed many mice but there were always more. Finally got a couple of barn cats. I feed the cats well and they kill mice for fun though sometimes also eat them. The cats live outdoors full time. The only mice I have seen since the cats arrived are dead ones as the cats sometimes leave me a trophy outside the barn. The cats are without question the most effective solution.

 

Cats, predator urine, etc.

Killing them will never be enough there will always be more. Gotta keep them away. They will go where the food is safer to get to if they smell danger.

 

Lots of great tips in here now! I havent tried poison but only because of what some others have said. I'm not opposed to it or anything — but since I live in a wooded area, I agree, there'll always be more and I don't mind them living in the bushes and stuff. So I felt like deterrents were better than trying to kill them off.

Might look into cats more seriously...

 

This is what rats did to my Tundra! $1300 to repair …. Honda makes a special electrical tape you can wrap your wiring harness with that rats don’t like and my mechanic used that after fixing the harness. Haven’t had a problem since.

 

I have one of these in the garage and it works like a friggin charm. Actually let pops borrow it for his barn and hes up to triple digits in about two weeks.

 

Seriously.....what tape?

you can't make a statement like that and just leave us hanging!!!!!

 

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Honda-4019-2317-4019-2317-Tape-Rodent-19Mm-20M-40192317/814457385

 

My understanding is that it uses the same ingredient as pepper spray.

 

What do you bait it with?

 

Peanut butter, creamy.

 

Bastages!

Note that the Honda tape is expensive and it doesn't stick very well. While I have used it in my engine bay, I don't know of its efficacy, as my problem turned out to be squirrels, not mice/rats as I had thought. One thing I continue to use is

$13 Grannick's Bitter Apple Liquid 1, 8 oz Chewing Deterrent Spray, Anti Chew Behavior Training Aid for Dogs and Cats; Stops Destructive Chewing Licking of Bandages, Paws, Shoes, Fur, Doors and Furniture

bitter apple spray as a deterrent, but I don't know if that works for mice/rats the way it does for squirrels.

 

Hi, I'm new here

 

The tape is 40 bucks a roll from honda direct, do you know how many rolls i would need for the entire engine bay?

 

I bought a tundra in Idaho and recently got it up to Alaska, while in the process of installing a supercharger, this is what I found...