There was smoke coming from under my car’s hood. Very worrisome. My husband and I were out running errands, and we noticed it just as we got back home. So he popped the hood…and discovered that the squirrels have decided that my engine compartment is just the place to store their acorns. Lots of acorns. Lots and lots of acorns.
The squirrels (we assume that it’s squirrels doing this) also like to store acorns in my husband’s truck and in the RV.
Stupid squirrels.
Get pest control people out NOW.
I have seen cars burned to a crisp from vermin infestations. I have also seen damage in the thousands from vermin. The squirrels /rats/ mice will chew on wiring harnesses. And pretty much everything else under the hood. You don’t even want to know what happens if they get in the interior. Last one of those jobs I had was a 15K bill to repair.
A buddy of mine owns a shop where they got a six year old SUV towed in. The damage was so bad the insurance company totaled it.
That really sucks! And excellent advice from Rick.
I hope your toasted acorns were delicious, at least. 
Nice, at least it’s a fairly cheap solution!
Last time I had “smoke” billowing out from under my hood it was a $1200 intake manifold gasket!
Years ago, my grandmother’s engine was making alot weird noises while starting it one morning, so she drove it straight to the garage. When the mechanic opened the hood, apparently he was greeted with a pretty gruesome scene, turns out, a nice plump groundhog had decided to snuggle up on the nice warm engine block the night before.
Stupid mice chewed the fuel injector wiring on my (then) wife’s Santa Fe. It cost over a thousand to diagnose and fix.
My son-in-law put mouse poison in his garage. A few months later he found the poison inside the air intake of his car when changing the air filter.
Yikes! I’ll tell my husband. I THINK that the squirrels are busy enough storing acorns that they haven’t chewed on tasty wires yet. But you never know with squirrels.
The squirrels also appreciate our bird feeders. We don’t feed the birds for the sake of the birds, you understand. We feed them so that our cats will have their own TV station. I sometimes go outside and sit in the sun, and I’ve come to recognize individual birds and squirrels.
Two words: Garage cat.
Free on Craigslist, wherever you are.
Actually, the Halloween fairy has visited us this year and left us a black cat in our driveway. Said cat has no interest in chasing squirrels. We suspect that this is someone’s outside kitty, because she is extremely loving. Whoever she belongs to, though, she likes to hang out in OUR backyard, in the driveway, and under the rose bushes. Our garage and carport are at the back of the house, we have a T shaped driveway.
My wife left the door to the garage open the other morning. She saw the dog (mini daschund) go out and didn’t thing much of it. She went into the bedroom to finish geting ready for work. When she walked back into the living room, there’s a dead squirrel in the middle of the living room floor.
I’m betting the squirrel ventured down from the attic and found the rat poison I left out. The dog found the squirrel, fortunately soon after it died. There’s so much crap in my garage it would have been stinking up the place before I found it.
I really need to plug the hole in the gable that they chewed open to gain access to the attic.
I have had problems with mice nesting in the tractor down at the farm. They chewed some wiring, which I fixed. I read on a tractor forum that it helps to leave the hood up because the engine compartment becomes a less-cozy hiding place. It seems to be working thus far. Unfortunately, that’s not a pratical solution for a car.
People think that the furry tailed rats are cute.
My dad is a dab hand with a forked slingshot, and got him a squirrel that was chewing up the guttering on the house. Some people thought he was “cruel” to do that.
This time of year I always check the grill before I light the burners. Mice seem to think it’s a great place to hole up for the winter.
Are you awaiting the presence or absence of mousies before lighting?
Count me in as one who has had to splice wires and replace an entire wiring harness thatnks to our furry little “friends”. I finally attached poison to the top of the engine block with heat tape. Seemed to work.
Yep. I tossed a few bricks of poison around and found them later, all gathered up in the trunk of one of the cars by a fastidious pack-rat! What are you gonna do?
I think squirrels are adorable, both in appearance and (observed) behavior. I also think that they’re a damned nuisance. I’ve had to pay to replace a lot of phone and cable and other utility wires and accessories.
My husband thinks that squirrels are cute…and tasty.
My Step-Dad “hunts” the little buggers in the back yard. His tool of choice is a .22 cal pellet gun with a suppressor. He is a bit nuts but he does a number on the neighborhood population and he is vewy vewy qwiet.
Capt of the Reavers
rodents will store food in dozens/hundreds of locations. any hole is good.
if you use baits then anchor them, put a nail through it into a block of wood or in a box with holes (smaller than the bait). then the rodent has to eat the poison instead of hiding it somewhere and maybe never eating it.