RATS!!!!

Reminds me of the Cow Licking Incident at my old work a while back. My boss and a coworker parked their rented 4Runner in a field while doing surveys, and when they got back to the car, it was surrounded by cows. The cows licked the paint down to bare metal all over the car. Avis said it was one of the weirdest damage reports they ever received.

Toyota has to start doing taste testing of all their auto parts!

 

I live in northern California and About 15 years ago when I still lived at home my mothers Honda Minivan started to smell..... strange and when you turned on the AC fan it got worse in what is now a family joke phrase my father said "lets blow whatever it is out!" and turned up the AC fan to max.......... in doing so he blended a small mouse family inside her AC unit. Guy at the Honda dealership said it was the worst he had ever seen, smeared rodent everywhere in the ducting. Make sure not to do THAT.

I haven't had them in the truck but just spent hours cleaning up rats in my mancave/barn today they SUCK

I feel for ya with such a new truck!

Best things I have used is THIS RAMIK BRAND bait everywhere and the classic style traps with peanut butter.

 

Thats a big one. My wife and are fighting them off at our house. The bad thing is that we bought the house less than a year ago, and there was no sign of rodents at the time. I honestly think the previous owners covered up the signs. Pest control company told us we have two different kinds of rats. We have Norway rats in the crawl space, and roof rats in the attic. My wife enjoys gardening, and we found were these rats have dragged, peaches(we found peach pits), squashes, other produce, and even peppers into the crawl space. The roof rats are the worse, because we are dealing with the second one to die in the attic in less than a two months and the stench is unbearable. With us having the spray in (looks like white cotton) insulation, it is practically impossible to find the dead rat. The current pest control company is proving to be worthless, as far as what they said they can and will do. Hopefully you have your problems under control

 

wat!?

 

Use poison. You can get poison traps that contain the poison so that dogs or cats can' walk off with the bait. The only danger is that the dead rodent could be found by your cat or dog and get sick eating it.

 

I'm sorry man. That is frustrating. I followed directions found here:
http://www.wildlifeanimalcontrol.com/rats.html

I trapped mine by placing Tomcat snap traps inside live traps behind the trigger flap. The rat in the picture got hit by the snap trap but didn't get caught by it. It did set off the live trap though and was trapped inside it jumping and trying to bite me as I pulled the trap out from under my house. I shot that one in the head with a .22

The daddy rat had set off the live trap and was DOA caught in the snap trap as well. 2 more baby rats got caught in the snap traps but weren't heavy enough to trigger the live traps. I closed off the way they were getting in and haven't had anymore problems.

 

I keep reading this thread, I'll be going back to the Chevy Colorado.

 

Yeah right. All vehicles now have eco friendly materials. Salesman: why are you trading in your Tacoma? You: I don't like rats.

 

No I just tell them I had a brain fart when I bought a black truck. They can understand that.

 

Dang you could grill that little fella up and have some good eatin right there

 

Haha rat blender! Oh god that’d be so horrible to have to clean and smell... id throw up for sure

 

Now I am paranoid......I have never seen a rat in my garage or out building...certainly not in my home....... but now I need to find a way to protect my new truck! Tagged for further reading.

 

We use "Rat Tape" that you can get from Honda. It repels the little buggers from wanting to get near your wiring.

https://www.amazon.com/Honda-4019-2317-Rodent-Tape/dp/B00AJTG3N0

 

What about some of the electronic sound repellent devices that connect to the battery terminals.....and stay on. Some of them seem to have some good reviews.

 

Also in fl, no rat problems yet but after reading numerous reports I took a can of plasti dip and some cardboard for overspray and coated most of my wires under the hood, hopefully it will cover the "edible" scent of the wires

 

My truck is in the garage and we don't really have a problem so far but a few weeks ago, while camping in Utah, I got up around 2:00 am to take some milky way photos and heard something under the truck. Shined my light and sure enough, saw a mouse drop down from the engine bay on to the tire and scurry off. Needless to say, I was paranoid the rest of the trip. Did not want to get stranded in the desert. I placed 2 lanterns under the truck but did not sleep great the rest of the trip. Been looking for solutions since. especially because while on some back packing trips, truck sits for several nights.

 

Cayenne pepper guys. Stopped this crap immediately. This was chipmunks in my wife's engine bay overnight. They also did this to my Taco engine. Shook cayenne all over the engines and engine bays and no more of this--not one nut since.

 

Did you get your wires back?

 

Just did a google search for soy based wiring and tons of stuff came up. Looks Toyota isn't the only one

 

Wow, scary though- and there’s lots of online lawyers advertising their services for class action lawsuits for almost every post-2000 make of car.

It would be good to continue reporting any successes and failures we have on this thread with what we try to prevent wire chewing in our incredible edible trucks! I’ve taken to cayenne as well as I just found mouse tracks today after my Thanksgiving camping trip in Utah on my engine, but luckily there does not appear to be any wires chewed. So, it’s a wait and see game now.

Edit: In addition to cayenne, I just ordered these to try out, but my dog may hate it so I’m only turning them on at night if needed - will keep this post updated on results: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B074WLBMKZ/ref=ox_sc_act_image_1?smid=AUFIHAMS1I85S&psc=1