How to protect car from rats during summer

Rats are year-round pests. However, they become most active during the summer since this is the time food and water sources are most available. The most worrisome thing is, your car is idle for days due to the lockdown and you have been avoiding to go out and check on your car because of the heat. It can be dangerous for your car. Take some time out and start your car for at least 3 to 5 minutes to alarm the rats living in your car. Because rats are likely to nest in car’s engine bay as it provides a space for them to cool down and feast on wires.

Before you start protecting your car from rats, it’s important to learn to identify rat problem first. The following will help you do that.

Rats are generally more active at night and are more common in late summer. If you see rats during the day near your car, this usually indicates high numbers of rats are living in your car.

While inspecting for rat activity, look for:

• Black, moist, thin droppings
• Rotten food
• Traces of biting and scratch marks
• Rat urine marks

Once you have identified rat presence in your car, it’s time to take some action. The safest thing to get rid of the rats is to install an ultrasonic rat repellent in your car’s engine area. This doesn’t kill rats, but simply repels them from entering your car. You can also try to remove rats on your own, but there are high chances that you would end up with dead rats stuck in your car. Even if you remove the dead body, it’s hard to get rid of the bad smell.

Learn to clean a car infested by rats this summer

It’s important to use extreme care in cleaning a car that has been infested by rats especially these days. Don’t sweep or vacuum rodent urine or droppings as airborne particles may carry virus. Instead, clean any infected areas with liquid disinfectant.

• Wear rubber or plastic gloves
• Mix 1½ cups of household bleach with a gallon of water and spray the affected areas until they are very wet
• Allow the bleach mixture to soak into the affected area for 5 minutes
• Wipe the area with a paper towel and then discard
• Sponge the affected area with bleach solution
• Create a second batch of bleach solution and soak gloves in it before removing them
• Wash hands with handwash and warm water after removing gloves

Keep Rodents Away

There's no definite way to keep rats from ever entering your vehicle. Still, you can massively reduce the chances of rodents coming near your car by keeping the passenger & engine area clean, and by parking the vehicle itself away from rodent-friendly surroundings. Furthermore, a powerful electronic rodent repellent for cars will keep rats away from your car.