Help! Squirrels eating front bumper

[viper88]

A lot of things that used to be rubber or plastic, are now soy based. A lot more problems with rodents eating wiring, and other stuff now. My brother in law had a rat at his work eat a lot of wiring in his new camaro a couple years ago.

You are probably correct. They also use fish oil.

https://priuschat.com/threads/rats-mice-love-to-eat-toyota-rubber-and-plastic-because.120153/

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[will1111]

Buy a pound of habaneros, roast them a little, blend with oil, and apply that paste to the areas affected once u park....lol they wont bug u anymore

 

[viper88]

Between this Summer and last Summer combined, I have lets say dealt with 17 chipmunks and 6 squirrels that decided they would live in my JK and JL's engine compartment. The chipmunks even made a home in my JK's, air filter canister. Oh, they also ate half of the sound deadener on my JK's engine compartment hood.

Yes, I live in a very isolated area with lots of woods nearby..

Anyway, I quickly dealt with them using a Rat Zapper.

Score: Bill 17 Chipmunks, 6 squirrels Critters 0

A friend has a 2000 Grand Cherokee. He had a rodent build a nest inside of his frame. It must have built the nest 10 years ago when it was parked in his driveway for 10 years. We noticed a few strands of string dangling from the frame out of one of the holes. The entire area around the hole was rotted out from the nest holding moisture. We started digging out the string through the hole and a huge chunk of frame broke loose. About a 6" long section broke off. I could not believe how much crap was packed inside of his frame. We pulled out a shoe box full of bird feathers, string, paper, cotton, leaves, branches. Mixed in with all of the nesting material was the skeleton of what we think was a rat.

 

[Adam 4248]

It's only a matter of time before they get the taste for rubber, aluminum and steel!

Yep, today’s modern super animals like the flying squirrel and electric eel...

 

[Karl_in_Chicago]

Friend of mine used to work in IT at a large advertising firm here in Chicago. They built a new "datacenter" in their downtown flagship building. After going live they began to experience sporadic failures in their DASD. Turns out the orange fiber optic ESCON cables were tasty rat food. Cost them a fortune to both try and get rid of the rats (a no-win effort) and recable the DASD (there aren't a whole lot of options on that kind of cabling).

 

[BlackRook]

Maybe you are the only one not have dealt with the vicious creatures.

I've got mice. Take em out by the dozen, they just keep slippin in through the fields. I've been trying to convince my wife that we've actually got it easy, since mice are merely gross (lil crap machines) and not terribly destructive like squirrels or other rodents.

Hey, could be worse, we could live in Germany and have to deal with martens...

https://jalopnik.com/how-cute-ferret-like-animals-cause-germany-65-million-1788013196

 

[CypressWrangler]

 

[BillG]

 

[Medictrode]

It's so odd that I was just talking about this today. I have the OEM metal bumpers and noticed the past 2 days cracked Acorns on the removable front pieces. I didn't think much of it until I saw it today again. Makes me wonder if there is something in the JL that they are attracted too. I haven't noticed bit marks anywhere but I will be checking closely tomorrow. Please poke around with a flash light and let us know if you find maybe what they are after, besides your bumper.

 

[jmgrant41]

It's so odd that I was just talking about this today. I have the OEM metal bumpers and noticed the past 2 days cracked Acorns on the removable front pieces. I didn't think much of it until I saw it today again. Makes me wonder if there is something in the JL that they are attracted too. I haven't noticed bit marks anywhere but I will be checking closely tomorrow. Please poke around with a flash light and let us know if you find maybe what they are after, besides your bumper.

I looked around before I brought it into the shop and nothing stood out to me as being appetizing to a squirrel or any other animal for that matter. It looks like they just genuinely enjoy eating the plastic. They've also taken a gouge out of the plastic at the bottom of one of my fenders and the plastic piece between the bumper and front grill. Someone else commented that a lot of the new plastics are soy based so that may be what's so delicious to them.

 

[TurboCopter]

Try to find some denatonium benzoate. It stops kids from biting their nails. It’s supposedly the most bitter non-poisonous compound. It might stop the bushy tailed rats from eating the next one.

 

[Shooting or Jeeping]

I’ll admit this- I just went through the thread for the comments. I have no useful information to add. Just wanted to say thank you for the laugh and I hope you find your resolution.

 

[mgroeger]

I wonder if this is related to an issue that Honda actually has a class action lawsuit against them. Honda used a wire covering that contained soy and was attracting mice which in turn ate the covering and jacked everything up. The suit ultimately went in favor of Honda but it raises the question... is there any soy oil/residues in the bumper cover?

https://www.classaction.org/news/lawsuit-claims-rodents-attracted-to-hondas-soy-based-wiring

 

[JeepDrvr2018]

I actually did this to a friend's door trim in his house that his dog kept chewing and I got tired of fixing. It worked

We left the jeep at our cousins house, so we could go back to WA and get the household goods, gone about a month. Did not notice anything for a while, but came out of restaurant in Cumming, GA and jeep would not start, hmmmm, battery was fine. Disconnected the neg cable, hooked It back up after a minute, started fine, got home. Took in for O/C and they discovered the mice had eaten several of the wires going to the computer, a new wiring harness was 1200, so I just had them fix the wires (oh rodent damage is NOT COVERED under the lifetime warranty, even though it's FCJ's crappy wiring that is causing the issue), that was about 18 months ago, keep it in garage now.

Damn environmentalists, use the good non environment insulation on the wires, and quit worrying about things you have no control over. Everyone is on the "reduce carbon" bandwagon, guess what, that volcano in HI, put enough carbon into the atmosphere so that even if we had ZERO amount it would take 20 years to get rid of what mother nature put back in. And that was just one volcano, routinely about 15-30 of them are going off at any one time. Forget about carbon, worry about being up to your ass in people, that is the real issue. Too damn many people.

 

[NavyVet1959]

Buy a pound of habaneros, roast them a little, blend with oil, and apply that paste to the areas affected once u park....lol they wont bug u anymore

Unless they're Cajun squirrels... Then they'll invite all their friends over for a party...

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