So biodiesel was responsible for my car breaking down......twice.... read on...

Got home one night and there was a strong smell of hot fuel. It turned out to be a major leak from one of the rubber fuel spill lines. I put it down to the extreme measures I'd used to get the car started following a freeze-up. This invloved heating up various bits of the engine with an electric paint stripper, the nozzle of which I'd assumed must have touched the rubber pipe. I replaced the pipe with one I found in the garage as a stop gap til I could get a proper part. Two days later that too failed - I put this down to it not being vitron. Had to call out the Automobile Association this time who replaced the line with a pukka pipe...

Two days later I had another failure of a rubber spill line but this time a different one. This also required an AA call-out. At first glance, it looked as though it had been chaffing on something but there was nothing nearby that would have caused it... Then the penny finally dropped - the fuel lines had been gnawed through by mice! Obviously, mice find biodiesel particularly attractive to eat. I now have traps set to put and end to their shenanigans - maybe I should bait them with biodiesel? Perhaps there's an opening for an effective mouse bait here

Nick

Ah, the possums in my barn keep eating the hoses on my processor and pumps. Very annoying. Fortunately they havent got to the car.

Easy fix.

Install Cat

quote:

Easy fix.

Install Cat

Problem - Dog would uninstall Cat

I think we have a classic case of conflicting operating system code here. .

Renegotiate the contract with the dog and make it understand the cat needs to become part of the team.

You need to let the dog know that in the interest of homeland security, he needs to work with the cat to prevent the mice from taking out (eating) the fuel infrastructure. If the dog is unwilling to cooperate, you could always enforce boarder security with an electric fence.

If all of the above fails, the last option is chemical weapons.. IE: Rat poison.

Install a firewall between the dog and cat ???

I'm glad everyone is making light of this because it can be a real battle to stop the rodents.
I suspect rodents mark wires and hoses they like, for future use.
This I believe because the little buggers seem to come back for more, forever, even after they offending varmint is dead and gone.
Here in New Mexico our number one electromechanical systems consumer is... Rock squirrels.
You can shoot em, smash them with shovels, trap em, or murder them in any number of creative country style methods of deadly force, and the bastards come back and eat the same damn wire & hoses their ancestor ate the month before, it's uncanny.
Like I said I think they are marking them somehow.
I suggest spraying the affected area down with a mild solution of bleach, or disinfectant.
Try and confuse them
I mean who is the evolved species here?
Unfortunately, it looks like the rodents are ahead.

Maybe some owl poop will scare them off...

Coyote poop?

One of those has to work.

Steam clean the engine, if it doesn't work at least the AAA folks will appriciate the clean work area.

I have the same sort of problem with rats. I also find it interesting that rats like the taste of gasoline. They have chewed up two plastic containers with gas in it. I also have coons that might be doing it. About every third night there will be a loud crash when coons try to get water out of the bird bath and tip it over. Then my cattle dog gets to go out and tree the coon.

In all seriousness, one really effective method I've used to get rid of rodents is to soak cotton balls in peppermint oil and leave them in the crawl spaces of the house or in the hard to reach places in cars.

The scent of the peppermint oil will drive them right out and you don't have to worry about cleaning up messy traps.

My gran taught me that one.

yes, peppermint oil was going to be my next suggestion! LOL Ya right.

Who thinks of these things?

Believe when I say that it works. Used it for years.

Oh i believe you..
I'm just saying. Who thinks of such crazy things?

Hey, today I think I'll go see if pepermint oil will keep rats at bay...
Experiment Number 4,598,789,992 It works!

Thanks for the suggestions guys - I'll certainly be giving peppermint oil a try....

.... In the meantime, I've armed myself with Weapons of Mouse Destruction, to wit poison and several traps....

As to the dog, here she is -



Butter wouldn't melt eh? But she can catch hares so a cat would stand no chance

I love dogs, and she looks like a real nice pup!

As for the peppermint oil, chalk that up to good ol' homesteader know-how.

quote:

Originally posted by Murphy:
Oh i believe you..
I'm just saying. Who thinks of such crazy things?

Hey, today I think I'll go see if pepermint oil will keep rats at bay...
Experiment Number 4,598,789,992 It works!

Well, if it hadn't worked... you could have made peppermint fuel out of it!

Well, I've had mice chew through all sorts of computer wires & etc... as well as my favorite 10/3 extension cord (you'd think they'd learn from that one).

My favorite though.

It seemed like I'd jump in my pickup during the fall and head down the road only to discover that the pickup made great right-hand turns, but was a pain to make left-hand turns.... (or correct the steering back to straight).

It turns out some squirrels started hiding walnuts under my steering mechanism. They'd roll on the right-hand turns, but catch when turning left.

Needless to say, they didn't find their stashed walnuts later that winter.

You'll have to add this to the many non-fuel related uses for biodiesel:

mouse bait

Based on several posts I have read over the years, a half full bucket of wvo makes a pretty decent rodent trap.

Emptying the trap isn't so nice...

Lead poisoning takes care of all the possums, squirrels and chipmunks around my house. I was totally overrun when I first bought/moved into this current house. The mice are too smart to show themselves or I'd shoot them too.

Finest regards,

troy