So what's the answer to that "why" question, the reader wants to know. The article doesn't nail it down, but it mentions warmth, then all the "outdoor dining sheds," and then — your whiskers will twitch! — "new soy-based insulation for car wiring — basically catnip for rodents."
The commenters over there swarm. The top-rated comments:
• "This has been happening for years in rural and suburban areas as care and truck manufacturers switched to soybean based insulation on the wires and rodents love it. I had to pay $500 to replace a cable several years ago on a Toyota truck...."
• "The reason it's happening now is buried at the end of the piece. Unintended consquences at its finest: Wiring looms used to be wrapped in a sort of electrical tape. But that's made from hydrocarbons and for environmental reasons, the change was made to a soybean based wrap. Rats don't love chewing electric tape, but soybeans are a special treat. We may have more rats running around which is a problem of its own, but that's not why this is a big problem today. We've set up a catering system for them that didn't use to exist."ADDED: If they're crazy for soy insulation, what's with the chicken bones, bread, and the bacon, egg and cheese sandwich? Maybe once you've got a reliable staple, you branch out, get some flavor, some variety.
• "The article really undersells the impact of the new wire insulation turning what used to just be a gross annoyance into a very expensive problem. My parents live in rural South Carolina and even there ever since getting newer cars they have been in a constant battle with field mice who suddenly want nothing more than to nibble on the wiring harnesses. I wish New Yorkers the best of luck, it takes a lot to dissuade a rodent which has found a food source."
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76 comments:
I have a friend whose new $100k + Porsche had its wires eaten.
Rats aren't very picky about what they eat...
Not just in the city, and not just new cars.
That broken down car in your garage or driveway that you've been meaning to fix up someday may already be a hotel for mice.
Pack rats like the mild electric current produced by cars batteries, according to my neighbor.
They are a problem here in AZ if you leave your car outside.
You don't need food to attract animals to the warmth and dryness, particularly if the car is rarely driven. Birds build nests. Spiders make webs. I used to know a cat that somehow got on a warm engine, and then the car was started. He came away with chewed up paws and missing half his tail.
I lived a year in New Hampshire in the 1990s. I had a nice Volvo with a block heater for winter. When I came back to California, I found that field mice had filled the area under the hood with dog food. The dry dog food was stored in the garage/barn and they helped themselves. It took a year before I got all the dog food out. I had provided a sort of Florida winter vacation for the field mice.
In a sane society, all "environmentalists" would be pilloried on the courthouse green.
Take care of your stuff. If you can't take care of your stuff, you have too much stuff.
Easy solution: You do not need a car in New York City.
This is a modern problem, but not a new one. I have a doctor friend in South Texas, drives a Mercedes and lives in the country. He found out about the soy insulation on his wiring harness about 4 years ago. Had to replace the whole thing. And since he replaced it with the same thing, I guess that means the second course is now served.
And since he's in the country, he parks outside, no garage. So I guess he'll be building one now; I'm sure it will have no impact on the environment.
'Easy solution: You do not need a car in New York City.'
Have you been on a subway in NYC at 10pm on a Friday?
It's not like being in Tokyo...
I got to "soy-based insulation" and broke out laughing. My lord.
I'm recommending they switch to bacon.
Wait until the rats start chewing the power cables on EVs. Exciting times ahead.
Soy for the rats and female-adjacent hormones. Rubber for the ethanol. A Green blight on the planes, in urbane holes, and from sea to shining sea. Throw another baby on the barbie, we're done.
Okay, this whole article is bullshit.
I lived in Germany in 1994, my car suddenly was not firing on all cylinders. Took it to the dealer. Mechanic explained that my spark plug wires had been chewed by marmots. Didn't believe him until he showed me the wires with the teeth marks in them.
This has been going on for a long time.
Warmth can be an attractant too. I once started my 1970 Malibu (which had enough open space under the hood to host a small party) after a few hours of it sitting outside in the dead of winter. An awful "wump, wump, wump" ensued. Popping the hood I was relieved to find a pulverized cat. Relieved, because at the time I was a poor student with no funds to fix what I had assumed was a broken motor.
As to the soy insulation, one more reason I hope to be still driving my 2012 Tacoma until the day I die. I once had a squirrel take up residence under the hood. but I don't think he chewed on anything. I assume our 2019 VW is another matter, though even there I hope never to replace it. New car "features" are generally a host of undesirable items. Government-mandated "kill switch", anyone?
@Althouse, who wrote: "Easy solution: You do not need a car in New York City."
Do we really even need New York City?
Easy solution: You do not need a car in New York City.
If you’re in most of Manhattan, much of Brooklyn and parts of Queens or a small bit of the Bronx, it’s a luxury. But you need a car if you ever want to get the hell out of NYC, something you really need to do if for some reason, as I am due to my anchor family, you’re still living in this shithole prison of a city.
Fiberglass sleeving for vehicle wire harnesses provides a simple way to keep rat teeth away from soy wire coatings. Some kind of a harness is required to keep wiring in place - so why not high-heat and teeth-resistant fiberglass already on the market?
My dog, a beagle so bred to hunt small rodent things, used to get super excited and try to chase rats. But they’re so common he doesn’t even break stride when they dash across the sidewalk feet from us. Takes a rabbit or at least a squirrel to get him excited now.
Even our cars are soy now. This war against toxic masculinity, or is it climate change? is out of control.
"I got to "soy-based insulation" and broke out laughing. My lord.
I'm recommending they switch to bacon."
The people who made this decision had to know the problems it would cause. Guess they didn't care. Bastards.
I thought the answer would be homeless people storing food for later. But no, it's rats...storing food for later. It figures environmentalists are to blame. If something doesn't work the way it's supposed to, it's usually because of the green lobby.
Joe Smith said...Have you been on a subway in NYC at 10pm on a Friday?
Yes. But if you have concerns, it's still cheaper to take cabs everywhere than to own a car.
It's not just a NYC problem. We live in the DC suburbs with no garage, and we had rodents of some kind (squirrels, chipmunks) chew through a component of my wife's fuel line.
"Birds build nests."
I park in the garage now, before that a pair of sparrows would build a nest every year behind the grill of my F-150. I didn't seem to matter that their nest would drive off for hours most days. The first year it got to the eggs stage before I found it.
"I used to know a cat that somehow got on a warm engine, and then the car was started. He came away with chewed up paws and missing half his tail."
Happened to one of our cats when I was a kid. Didn't lose it my broke his tail in half. We put her (him?) down.
Rats, mice, and their ilk love, Love, LOVE parked and stored RVs. My suggestion? Invest in guard snakes.
I used to know a cat that somehow got on a warm engine, and then the car was started. He came away with chewed up paws and missing half his tail.
As a young vet doing shifts at an emergency hospital I treated several “fan belt kitties” including one poor fellow who was brought in with his tail and scrotum hanging off. I removed the damaged tail and testes and stitched him up. The folks who brought him in had found him and decided to keep him so I gave them the bad news, a big bill, as well as the good news which was that he would recover from his injuries and was already neutered.
Nice to see an Althouse rat again.
With the price of food these days the rats might have some competition.
2/3 of the world's soy comes from two countries: the US and Brazil. I wonder if the soy lobby is like the corn lobby or the sugar lobby.
I didn't know rats could make breakfast sandwiches!
Why do I feel like I've got a bit part in a dystopian movie about how civilization ends and the land is taken over by rodents and nail salons?
"If something doesn't work the way it's supposed to, it's usually because of the green lobby."
I see you're familiar with washing machines, dishwashers, shower heads, toilets...
Rats and mice nesting in cars' engine compartments has been a problem as long as I can remember. However, they didn't used to go for the wiring. For the last 5 years or so, I've had car wiring aggressively attacked by rats. They have cost me and my insurance over $ 8000 so far. My neighbors have a similar problem, and literally everyone I have mentioned this to has said, "Oh yes, us too" or "Yeah, my neighbors...".
It's a huge problem, and has been familiar to rural and suburban people for years. Glad to see NYC is catching up! Maybe now, since it's now a REAL problem, something will get fixed.
Animals used to the plastic body panels of the old East German "Trabant" or "Trabi" car:
https://automobile.fandom.com/wiki/Trabant
https://www.ocregister.com/2017/01/01/a-tribute-to-the-terrible-trabant/
An easy way to protect vehicle wiring from rats is to acquire a couple adult feral community cats and house them and feed them just enough to keep them in the parking area. Rabbits, chipmunks, moles, voles, ground squirrels, rats, mice, and killdeer will virtually disappear. Ground-nesting, worm-eating, and adolescent birds learning to fly are always targeted. Even tree squirrels don't like them around. Cats don't eat wiring but they are seemingly sleepless, tortuous hunters with vociferous appetites.
This scheme works at my house.
Mice chew off telephone wire insulation in junction boxes by the back fence, shorting it out every couple of years. That's just fun to chew, not soy based. DSL fortunately is not much affected by shorts, being radio frequency. Just the voice phone goes out.
It does sound like they violated Chekov's rule about putting a loaded shotgun on the mantle in the first page of your story.
I have 6 cars at my house, been living her for 20 years. Only have problems with one car and rats. Oddly enough it is the one with soy wiring. We've been suing rat-a-way spray, get it on line. It seems to have kept them away this last year.
'Yes. But if you have concerns, it's still cheaper to take cabs everywhere than to own a car.'
And some people have money and can afford a car and/or driver.
Cheaper has nothing to do with it.
Why not let people choose for themselves?
I live in the hilly part of Los Angeles--and I park my car(s) outside. Maybe 15 years ago I took one of my cars in for service. The mechanic opened the hood of the car, chuckled, looked at me and said, "You live in the hills don't you?" Well--yeah. He was looking at the pine straw, date palm nuts etc strewed around the top of the engine and the edges of the engine compartment. Critters like to crawl up there on cold nights for the warmth.
Well that was mostly all fun and games until soy based insulation for wires came along. A neighbor had an $8,500 repair on his Kia electric vehicle. Seems the critters had not only chewed under the hood--they'd taken out the main power cable back to the rear motors.
But I'm surprised those NYC rats left their lunch behind.
@Althouse, who wrote: "Easy solution: You do not need a car in New York City."
Do we really even need New York City?
Lol. We probably don’t need NYC, but, contra Anne, plenty of us foolish enough to live here actually do need a car.
The check engine light would prompt me to open the hood myself. But I'm not a woman living in New York, I guess.
Wrap the wires with strips of fabric softener sheets. Works in California and Arizona that I know of.
Excitement today. Our little dog has been coughing and retching a bit over the last 18 hours or so. So ran her to the vet. But as I got out, I heard meowing. Walked around the truck, and it was very definitely coming from within the engine compartment. Popped the hood, looked in, and there was a larger kitten sitting there. He took one look at me, dropped down to the ground, and disappeared in a streak around the front of the vet clinic.
He hung around our house for maybe a week. Our indoor cat would look at the kitten, and he would look back. Some meowing back and forth too. And the dog wanted to chase him. I started feeding him maybe 5 days ago. I really don’t want another cat but my partner seemed to be adamant that we were going to adopt him, if we couldn’t find him a home. I had meant to ask at the vet’s if there was somewhere nearby for rehoming domestic pets (there is). But instead, got to inform them that they now had another cat there. Turns out that a neighbor of the vet clinic had a dog in there, and she told me that there is a cat lady a couple doors down, who feeds strays, and lets them get inside to get warm.
Ann Althouse said...
Easy solution: You do not need a car in New York City.
Part of being a free adult is that I'm not bound merely by what I "need".
What I want is a functional car.
What I absolutely do NOT "need" is wires wrapped in soy.
Bring back the all too superior plastic
Check Engine!?!?
I don't recall when I last saw a Check Engine light, but I think it was back in the 1990's.
I live in central New Mexico, high desert area. I had $800 worth of repairs to my RV from pack rats, and a car burned up from a short caused by pack rats eating the insulation. I checked the car's engine compartment every other day...doh! Not enough. I have destroyed several pack rat nests around the property and have trapped many. They are smart - I have video of a pack rat jumping over the tripping mechanism in a double doored Victor trap. I now keep the hood open, have 24 hour lights in the engine compartment and RV port and have a strobe light on in my truck parked outside. I'm going to install lights all around the property near the house where the rats like to nest - they don't like the lights or open areas. The mice don't seem to mind though...traps for them too. I had a feral cat living on the property for a few weeks. It disappeared around the time a bob cat family vacationed under the RV for a week. I'd pay them to stay put they like to travel. And eat other neighborhood cats...
'Why do I feel like I've got a bit part in a dystopian movie about how civilization ends and the land is taken over by rodents and nail salons?'
So you've never been to Washington, DC?
I live in central New Mexico, high desert area. I had $800 worth of repairs to my RV from pack rats, and a car burned up from a short caused by pack rats eating the insulation. I checked the car's engine compartment every other day...doh! Not enough. I have destroyed several pack rat nests around the property and have trapped many. They are smart - I have video of a pack rat jumping over the tripping mechanism in a double doored Victor trap. I now keep the hood open, have 24 hour lights in the engine compartment and RV port and have a strobe light on in my truck parked outside. I'm going to install lights all around the property near the house where the rats like to nest - they don't like the lights or open areas. The mice don't seem to mind though...traps for them too. I had a feral cat living on the property for a few weeks. It disappeared around the time a bob cat family vacationed under the RV for a week. I'd pay them to stay put they like to travel. And eat other neighborhood cats...
R C Belaire said...
Nice to see an Althouse rat again.
...in color!
Easy solution: You do not need a car in New York City.
If I ever make it to geezer, the age when people start asking about my secret to longevity, Move closer to where you need to be is going to be near the top of my list.
Is this the Environmental Justice the Squad is promising more of? How many billions of our tax dollars made soy car parts happen? Who are the democrats who wrote that bill?
Soy based car parts! Solyndra for your car.
The chief cause of blackouts in my town in New Jersey is squirrels and rats chewing through the electrical cables near transformers. The linemen always find a carcass or two near the base of the pole, smoking, following a power outage. Stands to reason they'd try their luck with other wires.
soy-based insulation for car wiring
Is there anything that progressives don't ruin?
"Have you been on a subway in NYC at 10pm on a Friday?"
No, but I have on Saturday at midnight. Seemed okay.
"Do we really even need New York City?"
Do we need any particular city? I can't say...maybe not. But if we do need any city, New York City is that city.
Last winter, when I was out of town, a rat made a home for itself under the hood of my X3. I knew that because when I got in the car for the first time it smelled horrible, like dead rat. The dealership wanted a thousand bucks to take everything out in order to get to the carcass. I just drove around with the windows down for three days, until there was no decaying matter left to stink.
I'd put a loaded rat trap under the car every night if there weren't so many squirrels, cats, rabbits, and coyotes.
The NYC subway should be considered a wonder of the world. Sure, you should carry pepper spray and a knife, but that's a minor inconvenience
"Is there anything that progressives don't ruin?"
No kidding.
Freder Frederson said...
Okay, this whole article is bullshit.
I lived in Germany in 1994
****************
AHA!!! That explains all your noms de sockpuppets!
For what it’s worth, I’ve had mice problems in vehicles. The funniest was when I was driving my late mother home from a medical appointment. We turned into the setting sun, so she opened the glove box and to get her sunglasses. Mr or Miss Mouse jumped onto her lap. I asked around my extremely rural neighbors and they’d found that mice hate fabric softener. One sheet under each of the front seats, maybe one in the glove box, seemed to do the trick. Might be some advice out there about under the hood.
Rats are becoming feminized from all the soy.
"I didn't know rats could make breakfast sandwiches!"
I guess it depends on how hungry you are.
"The chief cause of blackouts in my town in New Jersey is squirrels and rats chewing through the electrical cables near transformers. The linemen always find a carcass or two near the base of the pole, smoking, following a power outage. Stands to reason they'd try their luck with other wires."
performance at a Nine Nine level requires ample warfarin and strychnine in every NEMA enclosure. Rats can live in places that don't care about achievement.
The Althouse rat. Waiting to chew on mixed metaphor comments.
Kill them all; mice, rats, bugs. Let the rat God sort them out. HAWWWWW!
We treated ourselves to a stay at the Waikikian hotel once when we were working in Waikiki.
It was a charming string of two- or four-unit bungalows in the shadow of the mammoth Waikiki Hilton.
In between the Hilton and the humble Waikikian was a four- or five-story parking ramp. We were treated to multiple instances of autos in the ramp starting their engines, followed by the yowling of a cat. An ungodly sound that could only be in response to losing a tail (or worse) in the fan of an ICE.
There were probably significantly fewer rats/mice in the area surrounding the complex, but the cats now had the "privelege" of cooping out next to a warm engine block.
Somebody's got to lose a tail.
You’ve got to tell them: wire insulation is SOYLENT! IT’S SOYLENT!
(sorry)
Tastes like chicken.
I always thought it was Soylint green, a combo of soybeans and dryer lint. Kamala Harris could sell it.
Soylandra...
The soy narrative has been losing in court. But if you believe the narrative, don’t blame the greens:
“The introduction of soy-based wire insulation was meant to have a twofold benefit: It was less expensive for automakers and, because it used soy instead of oil, it was better for the environment.“
And which motive was more important to the automakers? Of course it was the cost savings.
Need more cats to catch the rats. (My girls, Amber and Misty, will volunteer!)
Freder Frederson said...
"Okay, this whole article is bullshit.
I lived in Germany in 1994, my car suddenly was not firing on all cylinders. Took it to the dealer. Mechanic explained that my spark plug wires had been chewed by marmots. Didn't believe him until he showed me the wires with the teeth marks in them.
This has been going on for a long time."
You seem to have made a career out of missing the point. That being that the problem is much worse with the introduction of rodent food coated wiring.
To anyone who has owned a vehicle and left it parked outside without using it for any lengthy of time then Yes. Rodents will find a home in your engine compartment. Duh.
gadfly said...
"Fiberglass sleeving for vehicle wire harnesses provides a simple way to keep rat teeth away from soy wire coatings. Some kind of a harness is required to keep wiring in place - so why not high-heat and teeth-resistant fiberglass already on the market?"
Production costs. Of course you could add aftermarket harnesses that weren't made of soy....
Howard said...
Rats are becoming feminized from all the soy.
Very true.
The first sign of infestation I look for is a bunch of tiny rat-sized decorative throw pillows placed around the car.
Rocco, you brilliant rascal.
"You seem to have made a career out of missing the point."
He revels in it. His greatest joy seems to be telling others they're stupid, in the most strident way possible.
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