My in-laws had a packrat-nesting problem in both of their cars (they live in southern AZ). Traps, bait, you name it, none of it worked ... until strobe lights under the cars.
We went out to the car today and found chewed up hot sauce wrappers on the passenger seat. And droppings throughout the whole car. We gotta get a new one. No idea where they got the hot sauce at either.
That sound like they are using your car as home base or the dining facility...and picking up takeout somewhere else in the parking lot.....
Your car is their apartment, but the real problem is the "supermarket" where they're getting their food. Remove the source of the food, and the rats will go away. I was talking once to a construction engineer for New York City Transit. He said that in almost 30 of inspecting NYC subway tunnels, he never saw a rat more than 100 feet from a station. There's no food to be found in the tunnels, only the stations. The same principle is at work. The rats are getting their food somewhere close by your car. Good luck!
Hubby drove it to the dealership today and then back home while we thought about the deal. Then an hour later we came out to this.
working in the auto industry, we come across it a lot, usually we just park the car outside with the doors open and for some reason it seems to work. not sure why but it does. rats love the wire coatings, I think its Honda or Toyota has come out with a tape to wrap the wires in that contains capsaicin, they dont like that lol one of the strangest and ive never heard of this till this year, a car from California came in and I wondered why it had an air freshener on the engine, guy said its to keep rats and squirrels away, quick google and sure enough, its something people do...
I posted this whole debacle on my local "talk" and a lady that parks where we do at our apartments messaged me and that inspired her to check her car. And she messaged me last night and said both her cars were affected and so was another neighbor. I saw a few other neighbors and they checked their cars and they were fine. It's very odd that only some of us were affected. And the apartment manager was upset that all of a sudden people are claiming they have rats. She can't do anything but put up traps she said. I'm proofing my car and not getting rats.
