This is rat-ticulous

[PeterJ]

Well, talking about strange things. Spent a week over the York Peninsular camping, got home after a 3hour drive and started the usual clean up, went to take the Stone Stomper bar off the tow hitch, every single time I have ever removed it I have grabbed the spanner and removed the two bolts from the bracket. This time for some utterly unknown reason I decided to drop the tow hitch. Opened the glove box to get the key and, holy ****, a rat stares back at me. Well, I was a bit quicker slamming the glovebox lid than it was getting out of the way. D4 glovebox lid =1, rat = 0.:bat:
Unbelievable lucky in all this, I can not imagine the damage the big rodent would have done, eating leather seats, wiring.........[bigsad].....who knows what else. I do wonder how it got in, but never mind, also set a trap in the car for the next couple of nights just in case it had some mates along for the ride. The mind absolutely boggles what would have transpired if SWMBO had opened the golvebox for something on the way home ....:toilet:
Anyway, just though it might brighten the day, have a great 2018 everyone.

Peter

[loanrangie]

That would have been iRATating [bigrolf].

[Trevlynn]

Well, talking about strange things. Spent a week over the York Peninsular camping, got home after a 3hour drive and started the usual clean up, went to take the Stone Stomper bar off the tow hitch, every single time I have ever removed it I have grabbed the spanner and removed the two bolts from the bracket. This time for some utterly unknown reason I decided to drop the tow hitch. Opened the glove box to get the key and, holy ****, a rat stares back at me. Well, I was a bit quicker slamming the glovebox lid than it was getting out of the way. D4 glovebox lid =1, rat = 0.:bat:
Unbelievable lucky in all this, I can not imagine the damage the big rodent would have done, eating leather seats, wiring.........[bigsad].....who knows what else. I do wonder how it got in, but never mind, also set a trap in the car for the next couple of nights just in case it had some mates along for the ride. The mind absolutely boggles what would have transpired if SWMBO had opened the golvebox for something on the way home ....:toilet:
Anyway, just though it might brighten the day, have a great 2018 everyone.

Peter

You must have had the terrain response set to "mud and rats"

[tact]

Had she found it, my wife would have been irRATional for days.

[kreecha]

It was very consideRAT of you to give the little guy a lift home.

[Toxic_Avenger]

I RATe this story highly.

[RoverLander]

Didn't you notice a RATtle on the way home???

[Gordie]

At least it wasn't in your kitchen...or you wudda been saying "what am I gonna do".

[orville]

D
idn't get into the Disco but had a rat enter the Caravan in Mataranka. Had to wait until Mt Isa to buy a rat trap. Then we had a few more days of scratching and chewing before we finally caught it with a peanut on a trap. Best traps are the cheapest and a nut stuck on hard so they have to pull. Even then I had to drown it as it wasn't dead and I wasn't going to let it get back inside.

[Saulman1010]

This is quite serious.
My P38a had a rat attack and it ate the insulation on the wiring under the fuse box.
I couldnt work out why the car was switched off and locked but the wipers were full on!.
Took ages to trace problem. I have seen damage to abandoned vehicles but not a daily driver!
Suggest you get rat poison pellets and scatter behind dash and under bonnet. Seriously - I have.

[crawal]

We had mice go under the back bumper eat the wiring then ate through the air vent behind the tail light .Then ate more wiring .Fixed it then headlight wouldnt work,yup more munchies .
I put capmhor sticks under the back and bonnet to deter them .

[DiscoJeffster]

I've had rats feasting on berries within the engine bay sitting on the engine cover. They'd leave behind the seeds from inside the berry as evidence, as well as rat poo everywhere. Thankfully I think they went there for the warmth to feast, rather than feasting on the car.

[ATH]

We had a rodent prob. which took a bit of time to fix after being caught in a huge downpour in the Defender couple of years ago. Several times when I opened up the back to get something I thought I noticed a movement but it was so quick I couldn't actually say I'd really seen anything.
To find out I put a cracker with peanut butter in a small plastic take away container and left it overnight and lo and behold the next day it had gone. Now to get the problem solved and at the time we were a long way from shops.
But we were chatting to an older bloke at a camp (Fletch from Q/Land) who was driving around in his converted MB ambulance and he said he had just the thing and lent us a mouse trap ..... bit of square tubing about 50mm sq. 30cm long and bent with a lid one end and you put bait the other.
Bait goes in and lid opened with legs to hold it up...... and next morning the trap had been sprung or rather had tilted and the door closed on the culprit.
I gently removed it from the Landie and shook it and there was definitely a body in there..... went away from the van and opened the door and a mouse came out so fast closely followed by another one.
Straight into a spinifex plant! No wonder I'd had trouble seeing them before I've never seen anything move so quick.
I gave the trap back to the old chap and searched all hardware stores but eventually got 6 from an internet store..... "humane" mouse traps they're called about 8 bucks each from memory.
AlanH.

PS. Gaining entry to a Defender isn't hard for mice.......

[PhilipA]

PS. Gaining entry to a Defender isn't hard for mice......
or cats probably.
regards Philip A

[PeterJ]

Yes, agreed, it is a much more serious problem than it may appear at first site. I have actually already replaced a bonnet sound deadening pad from mice attack and I am confident I have no rodents inside the car now. As has been commented they are capable of doing a lot of damage, hard to fix as well but just how you keep them out of the engine bay and from underneath the car is another problem alltogether, perhaps an alternative food source (poisen baits) might just be the go. Never would I just let one go while it still has a heartbeat :bat:

Peter

[letherm]

perhaps an alternative food source (poisen baits) might just be the go.

Peter

Don't RATion that food source.

Martin

[crawal]

put a toilet bowl smelly thing or the campour sticks under the bonnet a back , will keep them away i even use them in the sheds

[DiscoMick]

Something edible in a large ice cream container smeared with honey or oil might attRACT the rat in and then it not be able to get out because it's too slippery.

Speaking of passenger's, the DIL freaked when she found a huge huntsman living in the glove box of the son's Hilux. She ran around in circles hysterically screaming, "Kill it! " and refused to get back in until she saw it dead.
The next day she found its partner under the dashboard and repeated the performance.
It's become a family story to be regularly aired for her embarrassment.

[ATH]

A few years ago we were on Home Valley Station just off the GRR and went driving down to the river for a look see and found the manager with his Troopie with all the doors open and the passengers all outside gasping for air.
He'd turned the aircon on and the stink of dead something was horrendous apparently. He had no tools of any kind so I lent him a screw driver and he took off vents and found a badly decomposed mouse which was the cause of the foul odour. You wouldn't think something so small could smell so bad.
I think it took a while for the stink to abate before the tourists would get back in.
AlanH.

[Arapiles]

True story - as you may know, every couple of years we get massive mouse plagues in the Wimmera. As in, you walk into the house and the carpet's grey and then you realise it's not carpet, it's mice ...

When I was a kid we were driving to school in our HR Holden one morning and my brother who was sitting in the front saw a mouse tail sticking out of the glove-box, so he grabbed it and pulled the glove-box open. When he opened the glovebox the hundred or so mice which were sleeping together for warmth in the glovebox fell out and started running around the car. My mother went berserk and we had to pull over, open all the doors and get all the mice out before we could go any further.

[ATH]

This talk of glove boxes and the things that get in them reminded of me of back in the 70s when I worked on Bougainville Island. A couple of us fitters were down at a pump station and another fitter came in with the Tojo and shouted out "Come and have a look at this thing" and we went over and saw the biggest beetle any of us had ever seen hanging off the glove box.
The thing must have been at least as long as a big hand and about 3" across with huge bulging eyes and nasty looking jaws plus long "antenna " waving around.....
One of the locals we had with us said it was a "bee beetle" and we asked why......"because it sounds like a bee when it flies" he said!
"That thing flies?"!!!! We were horrified.
But he took hold of it and put it on a bush and off it went with us big strong blokes all cowering away in case it dive bombed us.
Helps being mad when working in the bush. :)
AlanH.