[Jaggu]

1- Cats i have seen it work. 3 per car in a compound is perfect No i am not kidding.

2- Slippery metal sheet about 3 foot high. Smear grease if you want to, on it. Ensure the ground is proper hard concrete so that they don't dig in. There should be couple of feet free space around the car. Very unusual for rats to climb smooth walls, but you can never rule out possibilities.

3- Use the stickie sheets, but then you have to dispose the buggers caught in them. They are very effective, even in office these are used to clean up rodents especially on AC duct area etc.

4- Rat cakes every day inside the engine bay, you will see buggers falling all around your complex. And in the long run i have seen them stay away from the location where the cakes were originally kept, atleast through a season.

5- Farm pesticide (rodent and snake repellent and should be easily at your farm area) do work but very pungent and messy to apply. They are kind of granules which can be a health hazard for other animals, children etc.

[sharkashwa]

I would go with Jaggu only with one exception that the 2nd option that he mentioned would be the last on my last.
Faced the rat menace more than once. Only after my beloved Baleno's wiring harness was shredded and the interior seats torn did I take the menace seriously.
We live in an independent house, so any option was viable.
Consulted mommy dear and came up with a three pronged approach.
1. Rat cakes near the car to lure them.
2. Ultra sticky glue flaps behind the tires and underneath the engine bay just to make sure that the buggers never get there again.
3. A wire steel mesh attached to some mounting points and covering the underside of the engine bay was a last resort if nothing would work.

We do have a couple of dogs, but they are the laziest kind and wouldn't bother even if the rats were running across their toes.

Happy to report that the menace died down in a week's time. But we do keep the rat cakes as a preventive measure just to be sure.

[Rahul Bhalgat]

Originally Posted by scopriobharath

the only fool-proof way is to make a "box" around the car. If money is not a constraint, this is what i would do -

• Erect 4 poles at each corner of parking slot. The pole height can be say 6 feet.
• Purchase the finest chicken mesh possible (as close knit as possible) and install to a height of 6 feet. Cover the roof with the Honda accord type sheet shown above.
• Keep a simple mechanism to open / close the chicken mesh on the "entry" side of the slot.
• Wrap two rounds of fine barbed wire to act as a deterrent for the rat to climb.

This solution will surely work IMO and this is not difficult to implement.

We can make poles from good quality 1" PVC pipes. 3 feet high poles with 5 feet high net shall be adequate. To prevent the poles from deflecting, connect them by same pipe size at the top, using elbow fittings. Do the same at the bottom to avoid need for drilling holes for the poles.

With standard pipes and fittings, this is a cost effectice and DIY job. Rats do not chew PVC or HDPE pipes.

So far, I have not faced this menance. But if at all I face, this is what I will do. Thanks scorpiobharath for suggesting this.

[Accius]

I too was facing the rodent problem from quite a long time. The left and right indicator wires were frequently chewed up by the rats.

I went to a pest control store nearby. The good samatarian suggested a pesticide name 'Phorate'. This is usually used by farmers to keep the rodents out of the fields. I have been using it since last six months and it is really very effective.

Phorate comes in a pack which costs about Rs. 150 for 500 grams I guess ( sorry, don't have the package with me currently to give accurate details ).

It is suggested to be put in small packets having tiny holes ( I use the filter bags which are tied on taps ) and be kept in the engine area. I use 3 packets in my car and usually tie these packets in such places where not much heat is generated.

Please be cautious while handling this as it is quite poisonous and use of hand gloves is strictly suggested. I usually change the contents of the bag every four months.

[hserus]

It is an extremely toxic organophosphate - thick gloves are well advised. As is a face mask.

It is easily absorbed into the body in multiple ways, and the consequences are unpleasant, to put it mildly, if that happens. As you can see below, just the consequences of being periodically exposed to this - by contact with the skin, accidentally leaving traces of it on your hands when you eat, inhaling its particles .. "memory loss, delayed reaction time" etc are not quite ideal when you drive.

http://pmep.cce.cornell.edu/profiles...orate-ext.html

Repeated exposures to small quantities - by inhalation, ingestion, or dermal routes - can result in cholinesterase inhibition for as long as three months. Workers habitually exposed to organophosphates have shown slow thinking, memory defects, irritability, delayed reaction time, and anxiety.

A survey of workers exposed to phorate revealed toxic effects in 60% of the males tested (after a two week exposure). Symptoms included a lowering of the heart rate. Effects on cholinesterase in the blood of the workers was also noted in this study.

[psispace]

I guess I'm with the cat theory too.

This one particular cat has found a fancy to sleep either under my Volvo or the Merc parked next to it. I used to earlier shoo it away out of fear of running over it.

But ever since it has made these cars its bedroom, there have been no rat issues yet.

GO CATS

Now I only hope they don't use our cars for their manicuring

[pawan_pullarwar]

How about a metal sheet boundary of just 1 feet tall but rounded and bent outside. Because metal is bent outside, rat will not be able to climb it upside down and problem should be solved.

[RonXRi94]

Originally Posted by sourav9385

Umm...Here's something that I've personally tried and tested, and can confirm that it works brilliantly!

It's a piece of cardboard which is covered with super sticky glue that you can lay out on the floor.

The best way to get rats to stick on to it, is by placing a small item of food in the middle of it.

Here's how the stuck rat looks like:


Then you simply pick up the board, and cast it away!

You should be able to find such a rat glue board thing at your local convenience store. Or, if you're that desperate, order a few off eBay

I had a rat menace in our apartment & near our car a few months ago, and we used these instead of the conventional barbaric rat traps.

These worked great, and within 2 days, we were able to get rid of the few who were frequenting our apartment.

Although, the rats we caught were small in size. Much like the size visible in the image above.

The glue board should work with bigger rats. But in case you're hesitant to try it out, or if the glue board is unavailable, try a cat like tsk has mentioned earlier

Yup, bigger rats would not get caught with these stickie sheets. I'd purchased one of these sheets when a fairly large rat made himself at home after I forgot to close the window at night. The next morning, the stickie sheet was packed with huge scratch marks. It's obvious he got caught but managed to escape.
Finally caught him with a rat trap with leftover rotis inside

Originally Posted by pawan_pullarwar

How about a metal sheet boundary of just 1 feet tall but rounded and bent outside. Because metal is bent outside, rat will not be able to climb it upside down and problem should be solved.

Innovative idea...Might actually work very well

[tharian]

Glue boards seems to be a good and cheap way to start off. 4 of them can be kept next to the wheels on the inside.

I have had rat issues in my parking lot, but thankfully no damages yet. Of the three cars parked in parallel, they have entered the engine bay of only my car always.
Recently I started parking the front towards the wall which I never do and surprisingly haven't seen rat traces in the bay since. Touchwood .

[Tanveer_2558]

I think i need to share my experience here which will help many of you guys i am sure

Even in my society rats come out in the night for the hunt to eat something but end up chewing wires of the cars and bikes parked.
Wires of my XUV 500 had been eaten up atleast 4-5 times and everytime the car had to be taken to the service center on a flatbed, Once the car went through a complete wiring change of the car which costed me around 24k! Similar thing has happend with my previous cars VW polo and Sx4.

Had tried everything from tobacco, Medicines for rat, Devices which makes sound and is supposed to scare the rats away, but in the end none of it worked.

Finally my dad decided to give a call to one of his really old mechanic, and well here is the best solution.

Solution : Tar brush, Available at hardware stores, now you need to fix it at crucial places from where the rat can get inside your engine compartment or anywhere else, for instance its fixed near the engine above and below in my xuv 500, and its been almost a year now and i have no issues, even though i can see around 4 huge rats almost everynight roaming freely in the society.

Will post pics if anyone would like to see how is it installed.

Regards,
Tanveer

[SmartCat]

I have anecdotal evidence to suggest that changing your car might help! On our portico, we had an Optra, Santro and the Alto - and the rats always used to gnaw the internals of the Optra. The Santro and the Alto were left untouched. Now, we have a Civic, Santro and City in our driveway and no rat problems so far.

Perhaps rats love the engine bays of certain cars (Eg: exposed wiring, lots of room, certain smells etc). If you have rat issues and you are in an apartment complex, just ask around - you will notice that some owners have little or no rat issues with their cars.

[raghav135]

Anything with net or a cover according to me is a temporary solution and once those are chewed/climbed , rats would really love that new home with cover protection!

And anything built on soil is not perfect either, rats would dig under it and enter.

The slippery metal sheet seems to be better, but will not recommend it, since if someone accidentally falls on it, it may cut the person in half!

My suggestion is rather unconventional, and I am sure nobody will agree with me .

IMHO rats does not like to come and occupy the cars / chew wires. It comes because it could not find a better alternative. So, if we give a better alternative like have a store room near parking area which is not rat proof (like have a big gap between lower portion of the door and the ground) and put useless items there , and do not have all concrete flooring everywhere in apartment, have some unused items in corner which may provide as better home to rat. And don't forget to protect the house from rats outside the house compound, else our compound will be rat's favorite .

And by chance if you ran over some already dead animal on road, better get an underbody wash done.

[sumeethaldankar]

Frankly i find all the solutions provided in the first post impractical. Rats will eventually find a way around or under them. Pest control and keeping surrounding area clean might help. Also most rats burrow underground in loose soil. Maybe a concrete marbled/tiled floor will prevent the Rats from housing themselves in the ground and look for holes elsewhere.

Rats in my society live in the garden section. If you have trees etc in the compound which have loose soil maybe having potted plants would be better instead of having loose earth around where rats breed. In my experience in poisons, a cake or a rat poison paste alone causes no harm. But i have applied the poisonous paste on the poison cake and let the mud hoppers feast on the combination leading to a guaranteed kill in a couple of days.

Edit: I daily pop the hood (well most of the days anyways) and sprinkle the engine bay with smelly tobacco and to some extent this does help. However i had a Rat finding it's way to the fuel filter located under the rear seat of my Civic and gnawing away at the fuel pipe attached to the fuel filter. I had to get a wire mesh fitted around the fuel filter to prevent the rat from accessing the fuel pipe.

[hserus]

Big bandicoots burrowing underground actually caused subsidence of tiles in my previous building's parking lot, and we had to spend around 40K to get the ground resurfaced and new RCC cement block tiles relaid. When we relaid the ground we mixed broken beer bottles and old nails into the mud before we did - and the rats seem to have kept away.

We also have one extremely pretty looking female cat who has made the building her residence - and so, there is always this steady stream of male cats coming after her. Rats just don't come anywhere near our location now.

The issue is what to do with playful kittens climbing into car engine bays, and cats gnawing at milk packets the milkman places anywhere they can reach

[sandeepmohan]

Originally Posted by sourav9385

Umm...Here's something that I've personally tried and tested, and can confirm that it works brilliantly

I did too and it did not work. This mouse was a smart one (Or rat, was a small fella). I had a mouse take a dump inside my car for about a week. I remember cleaning up the interiors of the car with Dettol even at places where the mouse had not soiled the place. Could not take a chance with hygiene. This little fella only visited, no damage done to the car. I placed this sticky thing, even put half a slice of cheese on it and it was smart enough not to touch the cheese. I could see the foot prints on the sticky board and the mouse still managed to get away clean. Maybe the board I used was poor quality.

The mouse was entering the car via the hvac system. I left poison in and around the engine bay, noticed it was eaten and the mouse did not die.

I had to finally resort to visiting Ford service and while they were stripping the inside hvac unit, the mouse ran away.

Originally Posted by sourav9385

Then you simply pick up the board, and cast it away

Where?

My father drowns them after they get stuck in the rat trap.