'98 Crown Vic, rat chewed wires - the saga...

[MacFromOK]

What is wrong with traps

The constant monitoring, baiting, and resetting. There are days at a time that I don't feel like going outdoors.

When I sold our hogs, I made the mistake of parking the feed grinder in my shop. After the rats cleaned out all the feeders, they moved to the shop and literally cleaned the grinder. They were so bad that you could smell rat urine when you opened the door.

I set traps. Traps disappeared. I finally started wiring 'em to transmission gears and other heavy metal parts, but there were so many rats that I wasn't making a dent in the population.

So... I put out antifreeze in shallow pans (this was back in the '90s), and they were completely gone in a few weeks. Anti-freeze has been my rat control ever since, until recently when mfrs put stuff in it to taste bad.

So, here we are. :/

 

[MacFromOK]

Are you wanting to sell the car? I’d be interested in buying it, let me know.

Not 100% sure, but PM me an offer.

 

[918evo]

98 is right around the time-frame when the cats had a higher percentage of palladium ($$$). The converters(should be 4) alone are likely worth more than $500, sell the engine to someone for $400, trans for $300 and crush the rest for $200= Problem solved.

 

[MacFromOK]

98 is right around the time-frame when the cats had a higher percentage of palladium ($$$). The converters(should be 4) alone are likely worth more than $500, sell the engine to someone for $400, trans for $300 and crush the rest for $200= Problem solved.

Might be an option if I were physically able to do much of anything. :/

In which case I wouldn't be hanging out here very often...

 

[918evo]

Might be an option if I were physically able to do much of anything. :/

In which case I wouldn't be hanging out here very often...

lol fair enough... Any grandchildren that like the cut things with a Sawzall?

 

[MacFromOK]

lol fair enough... Any grandchildren that like the cut things with a Sawzall?

Lol, I wish. Don't get me started...

 

[MacFromOK]

FWIW, Mavmatt was looking for a 5.0, this one is a 4.6L SOHC.

 

[dennishoddy]

I'm sick of this "humane," "eco-friendly," and "pet-safe" nonsense regarding rat poison.

I want some good old fashioned poison that actually kills rats.

<-- Me & the rat... I'm the one with the hammer.

The issue with rat poison is that the old stuff had secondary kills, sometimes to pets that ate the dead carcasses. The industry has gone to poisons that kill by several different methods so the secondary kills don't occur.
There are five ways that rat poisons work to kill rats, and the speed at which they are effective varies. While those are working, they continue to eat. Make sure and keep the rat poison cubes secured by wire as has been mentioned.
So now you have options. Rat traps that may not work so well for you, a cat or cats which I hate because when they run out of rats they are the #1 predator of ground nesting birds.
I had a similar issue with mice and rats in a barn that were chewing tires. The long term solution was the poison cubes. The short term solution was two part. We have a large population of black rat snakes in our area. If I saw one, it was captured and transplanted which was solution #2. The quickest since I'm 45 miles away from that barn was to do a shock and awe with traps. They aren't expensive so there were about 20 or so mouse traps and a dozen rat traps set and baited at one time.
A couple of weeks passed and went back to the barn. Most of the traps had done their job. Reset them and a couple weeks later there were just a few mice and no rats.
The black snakes worked well for long term until winter when the rodents started back in looking to get out of the weather. Traps back out.
Here is the way rat poisons work today.

• Death From Internal Bleeding (3 to 7 days)
• Death From Heart Attack (3 to 4 days)
• Death From Lung Failure (12 hours to 2 days)
• Death From Central Nervous System Failure (14 hours to 4 days)
• Death From Dehydration (3 to 5 days)

 

[MacFromOK]

I ordered some of the "Just one bite" individual packets from Amazon a little while ago.

Hopefully that will do the trick. I left the hood up tonight, but it's probably gonna smell like rats for a while.

I really appreciate everyone's input.

 

[retrieverman]

When I bought my OK house, there were signs of mouse activity in my barn, and I started putting out Liquitox liquid rat poison and have kept it out continuously. I keep corn and protein in the barn most of the year, and I haven’t had a single sack chewed on. Coincidence?!? I don’t think so.