halfdome, Danny wrote:Recently I bought something called Rodent Repellent for under the hood of my 55 Chevy.
It can be wired in the vehicle's 12 volt system or on AA batteries.
It's supposed to keep pests like mice, cats, Martens and squirrels away with changing ultrasound and bright flashes to keep pests away from vehicles and property.
I can't say if it is working or not but so far nothing has nested on the chrome air filter. ...
Tom&Shelly wrote:We've seemed to have good luck with flashing LEDs. The Victor ultrasound systems, not so much, but it sounds like you've got something more sophisticated that may well work better. To tell the truth, I'm not even sure the Victor ultrasound worked, sometimes I could hear humming, and sometimes not, and what it did at ultrasound, I couldn't say. But it did say it was safe around pets, and it didn't seem to bother our cat, so as to the immediate problem...?
Danny- I recently bought a product called, coincidently, "Rodent Repellant", too.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B8Z1D9PL?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details It's mostly peppermint oil, which my wife likes, to replace the mothballs, Bounce dryer sheets, and Irish Spring soap bars that I've always used to protect our cars from rodent damage. I parked my old '66 Chevelle drag race car in our sometimes rat/mouse/scorpion/snake-infested garage, untouched/unmoved for 13.5 years, using the mothballs, dryer sheets, and Irish Spring components scattered profusely inside the car (replacing them periodically as their efficacy declined with time), and when I finally swapped it for another vehicle ('01 BMW X5) in '21, there was no trace of rodent damage, inside or out, so that method really worked for me. The garage isn't so much-infested after our semi-feral cats started patrolling our property, these days (rat & snakes have mostly moved on).
I also use rat bait pellets from Tractor Supply scattered around on the 3-bay garage floor, to kill those rodents that make it into the garage...I just have to be diligent to keep the semi-feral/semi-pet cats out, so they don't eat either the pellets or the dead rats.The first thing I did when I got my X5, parked outside the garage, was to put mothballs underhood, and Irish Spring soap bars in the trunk storage area (there are two side-panels that have been known to be penetrable by rodents), and did the same with my wife's '14 Lexus ES 350, parked in the garage, of course (using only the dryer sheets and soap bars, because she hates mothballs...which I love, as the smell of them brings a subconscious pleasant memory of my Grandma's house, in the '50-60's). My 4x8 trailer, also stored in the garage, is sealed so tight (with an exterior shell of 3/4" plywood), is so damn-near impervious to insect/rat/snake intrusion, that I've only put the long-lasting soap bars inside (and rat bait pellets underneath). Our other stored-outside vehicles all get the same protection, with never a trace of rodents (except for once, when I forgot to renew the mothballs underhood of my '09 HHR Panel, and found chewed acorns there). The 24-pack of peppermint balls (in cloth bags) should do the trick for me.
I also have mothballs for my X5 and '04 Chevy 2500HD, becuse she never rides in them much, and I like mothballs!I have tried letting our housecats smell mothballs and dryer sheets and soap bars, and found that they don't really fear them, and probaly would get the same result testing the outside cats (especially if they were hunting nearby, I'd guess, since they're so focused on their prey), and even had one of them start chewing on an Irish Spring bar, when he was a kitten. These smelly repellants I've used for rodents are not so much a cat-deterrent, but by repelling the rodents they hunt, perhaps the cats would go elsewhere, away from where you've parked your trailer.
Tom- Never tried flashing LED's (my X5 has one under the rear-view mirror...maybe it'll help repel critters, of all kinds), but I've tried ultrasonic repellers, made by Victor and others. We had a problem with water pooling very near our house, about10 feet away, in a swampy part of a neighbors yard that had partially spread onto our property, which attracted all sorts of insects (mainly waterbugs), rats, amphibians, and snakes over a 15-year period. We used all sorts of poison bait traps and ultrasonic repellant units in the area of the house nearest the "swamp" to combat the waterbug invasion. That room was also where we had the "cat cave", where my wife's 10-12 housecats had their litter boxes (after all had passed on, we were never getting cats again, but now 15 years later, we have 4 inside, and a core group of 8 spayed semi-ferals outside...at least those are doing a service for me, keeping critters away). The ultrasonic units never deterred anything as far as I could tell, not bugs nor cats, but I could tell they were working, in my pre-Tinnitus days. I can recommend ultasonic units to scare away cats, just my opinion.