[vijay_rodie]

Originally Posted by parsh

A small common age-old remedy is using chewable tobacco pouches. What you do is get some common chewable tobacco pouches, generally they are paper pouches. Just poke them so that the tobacco smell starts filtering out. Put them in plastic zip pouches (so that these dont get wet) and again poke these too so that the smell comes out. Now hang these in your bonnet or other places desired.

I had tried this in my swift. But no luck. The rats seems to be smarter, as they had tear off all of the tobacco pouches in engine bay and the paper tobacco pouch was jammed in AC blower. It costed me around 150-200 rs to get that blower cleaned.

[Catalyst_delhi]

WD 4O works like a charm. Also you can try run away cockroach powder worked wonders. But i guess wrapping the plastic tubing with wire mesh is a sure method. Easy to work with but cuts skin badly.

[lancersfx]

I had the same rodent issue about a year ago. Four problems that I faced ::

1. The wiper stopped working.
2. Most dangerous, the accelerator would get jammed for no reason.
3. They managed to chew away bits of rear cardboard where the speaker mounts.
4. The rear floor mat was reduced to half with all the bits strewn around.

Solution to the first problem was to keep alternating the direction wherever the car is parked. (May sound funny but has worked very well). The rats had chewed the inner cables in the wiper motor of my ikon. Ford asked me to replace the entire wiper motor kit. Took it to a mechanic who completely opened up the motor and fixed the cut wires for a mere 200INR.

Fixing the second one was quite a trivial thing but a significant one. The rats had managed to drop some seed that resembled coffee bean but much larger on the accelerator spring/lever in the engine bay. On a trip to mysore I realized that after I released the foot off the accelerator, the engine would continue to rev hard. I managed to use full clutch park the car aside and opened the bonnet to find the culprit.

[GTO]

Damn rats are all over my cars! Civic's the worst hit, with lots of chewed wires in the engine area. Some lights not working. Don't think these rodents like cheap Mahindra stuff; the Jeep has a lot of poop around it, but no wires chewed.

Going to try those tobacco pouches over the weekend.

[SmartCat]

Originally Posted by GTO

Damn rats are all over my cars! Civic's the worst hit, with lots of chewed wires in the engine area. Some lights not working. Don't think these rodents like cheap Mahindra stuff; the Jeep has a lot of poop around it, but no wires chewed.

Based on personal experience, I would say that rats prefer cars with low ground clearance - if its given a choice. To get into Mahindra's engine bay, the rat has to climb up front tyre and enter through the wheel well. With the Civic, all it has to do is get under the engine and climb into the engine bay. Rats take the path of least resistance.

[yogi1771]

GTO tobacco pouches don't work,even after tying 6 pouches in my car I could still find rat poop in the engine bay,luckily no wires were chewed.Have been spraying diesel for some time now in the engine bay and that has kept the rats away .

[mgh]

In the good old amby and padmini days, rats used to specialise in chewing up plastic tubing. Plastic tubing was popular those days, because it could be easily removed from carburettor, for DIY solutions to starting problems. Many people changed the tubing to copper because of rat problem.
However, one did not hear of wires being chewed, I wonder why.
My neighbour had three cars, a skoda octavia, a qualis and a santro. For some strange reason, the rats attacked only his skoda.

[ObsessedByFIAT]

I am the latest victim of this rat menace. Few minutes ago I noticed rat foot marks all over the engine bay. I have got the engine coated, around six months back.

Apart from the tobacco pouch, what are the other options that I have? :(

[GTO]

So I went ahead and installed this product listed on our classifieds by Ryan @ Tufkote.

Pricing was:

Set of 4 Rs. 350/-
set of 6 Rs. 500/-
set of 10 Rs. 800/-
courier charges extra Rs. 100

Had my man pick up a set of 6 for 500 bucks. One of the MAJOR reasons I got the Rat Repellent is that I don't believe in killing (am a staunch veggie & Jain), thus rat poison was out of the picture. Rather than trying some jugaad tobacco pouches, this appeared to be a simpler solution. However, if it doesn't work, my next option is at the local panwalla.

Took all of 2 minutes to install. Lets see if it works; I'll update the thread after 2 - 3 months with the good / bad results.

*Update* Nope, Tufkote hasn't helped either. The poor Civic had its windscreen washer pipe and indicator light wiring chewed off by rats last month. Damn, I was really confident of this product, but it has failed miserably. Surprisingly, rats don't seem to like the Sunny or Jeep's goods which are left untouched. Period.

Small, light plastic bottles:


Removing the paper wrapping exposes the ventilation / hook holes:


Use the included cable tie and snap it any place safe (away from heat / moisture) under the hood. It's recommended to place them diagonally opposite each other. Neither the Jeep nor the Civic gave me an option I was comfortable with, hence placed a bottle each at the top left & right. 2 bottles / car is recommended:

[Thad E Ginathom]

Please keep us informed.

A non-lethal method would be great. Not only do I prefer not to kill these creatures (rats are great, just I can't chose to share my car, house or garden garden with them), but I worry about the effect of poison-consuming rats on cats, crows, etc.

I'd buy a hundred of these, if they work! And put them around the places where the rats dig their way into our garden.

[AvinashV]

Even i had the tell tale signs of rats in my engine compartment - footprints in the dust on the engine. But it was when i had left the car in one place for 5 days as i had gone on vacation. Since then since i drive everyday to office I haven't faced the issue.
But now the rat seems to have come home (literally). My internet wire comes down from the building terrace through my balcony & then through the large windows ( i stay on the 4th floor) & my airtel dish wire also comes through the same gap. Few days back after seeing the fruits in my house had been eaten in a weird manner & the droppings in the house realised a rat had come. Luckily, it seems to have gone out the same way. Now i taped the whole window gap just leaving a tiny one for the cables to come in. Looks like the rat didn't take that too well & has nibbled right through my internet cable & part of my airtel cable.
Kept rat poison (HIT) last night but again last night an additional part of the cable was eaten into. Any solution to this mess?
Will coating the wire with diesel help or any other liquid? Or is it rat trap time?

[parsh]

Originally Posted by GTO

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This is damn neat, clean and easy solution.

Mine is not so good looking, like below:



Though both serve same purpose and employ similar technique, this one is damn good solution and for 350/- for 4 bottles seems not bad at all. Guess I will also shift to these once my pouches wear out.

[vijay_rodie]

Originally Posted by ObsessedByFIAT

I am the latest victim of this rat menace. Few minutes ago I noticed rat foot marks all over the engine bay. I have got the engine coated, around six months back.

Apart from the tobacco pouch, what are the other options that I have? :(

Somewhere in the forum I had read that, naphthalene balls helps to keep rats away. I tried this and it really worked. I had not seen any rat dropping/foot prints inside the cabin & engine bay, since last 2 weeks.

[Sunny916]

I think the best way to get rid of Rats is to keep a cat in the house, give it a rug to lie around let it sleep in it for some days then take the rug not the cat place it in the car bonnet or on the cabin floor for a night and repeat it 3 to four times the rat will not even touch ur car because of the cat smell on the rug. I have tried this in my Esteem and it did work cause I park my car in a rat infested place its been about a month or so their is no sign of rat, but keep in mind don't dust the rug when taking in or out of the car or house cause the cats hair might fly about causing some health problems.

After that make sure you vacuum the place were u put the rug it will help.

[Thad E Ginathom]

That's clever.

I'd always thought the cats would do the trick, I never thought of using something that smelt of cat.

My previous cat family were useless. They would sit and watch rats! Our recently-acquired cat has killed a couple, but that was before he started being fed by us: he probably won't bother now.