How To Keep Rats From Eating My Cables?

An anonymous reader writes "I am curious to know what vermin prevention/eradication methods are used in other locations. I am working at a dealership and we have an exterminator man who puts out glue traps and bait stations, but they still come and eat my cable. The latest was a couple of fiber runs — very expensive. I have threatened my boss with a cat for the server room (my office), going so far as to cruise the local Humane Society's website and eye-balling a nice Ragdoll-Siamese mix. Even if I do feel like dealing with a litter box, cat hair in the equipment and pouncings on my keyboards (and I'm not sure I do), that only covers the server room. We have multiple buildings on the campus which get locked up to prevent theft, but it isn't secure enough to keep out the critters and the latest chew spot was in the ceiling. Any ideas?"

Comments

Three options

[SatanicPuppy]

Rats and mice don't eat cables...They chew the insulation off to make their nests...or if it happens to be in their way. So your best be it to figure out what the hell they're eating, and shut down their food supply. They'll move on shortly thereafter.

The word "campus" may put paid to that notion, however. Campus implies lots of people, lots of garbage, and lots of space. God help you if it's a college campus, the promised land of vermin the world over, where bulldog sized rats subsist on half a cheeseburger out of the dumpster. If that's the case, then there is no way you'll be able to shut off their food.

Introducing predators isn't necessarily a bad idea, but its a measure that can, in no way, co-exist with traditional methods of poison and trapping. Your predator will likely set off the traps and poison itself on the bioaccumulated toxins in the bodies of its prey. If you do get a cat, better feed it a bunch of activated charcoal with its kibble.

Which brings us to poison and trapping. It's not that they don't work. They work GREAT. If they're not working, it means you're not using enough. You need to come to the budgetary equilibrium where the amount you spend on extermination makes sense based on the cost of cable replacement.

So if you can't shut off their food, and you can't stomach the thought of your kitties/ferrets/snakes keeling over dead from poison every month or two, you're going to have to up the extermination.

Re:Three options

[poopdeville]

They could also try to secure the installations with expanding urethane foam sealant. This is the stuff the Mythbusters used to "prank a car", and that Mike Rowe used a few weeks ago to seal a mine shaft.

http://www.homeenvy.com/db/9/49.html

Re:Three options

[SatanicPuppy]

Good call. I spaced on that part. That's almost worse though, because of what may be nearby. A river, some fast food places, one of those goddamn toxic peanut factories.

All the same points apply though. Stop the food. Or get some exterminators...Some good ones if the rats are coming from a neighboring property. Maybe see if you can report your neighbors for excessive vermin?

Re:Three options

[techess]

Having had rats as pets, I can attest that rats can chew through concrete. Poison sucks because when they die you've got rotting corpses all over the place. The most important thing to do is get rid of food sources. Once that is done, there are several options. Some police stations are using stray cats to help with the rodent problem. They are using feral cats though so they don't desire human interaction. Throw a feral cat in a building and you may never see it again, just clean up the box and keep food & water out. They also are good at getting up into drop ceilings. Be careful though I've got a cat who is a wire chewer so you may just be adding another cable destroyer to the mix.

Some people recommend plaster of paris (dry) mixtures because when they eat it, it clogs them up and I guess they don't stink as much when they die. I haven't tried it so I can't say for sure. Mix this with traps in areas that are easy to clean and you've got a start. My personal preference for keeping rats out of my barn/hay is the rat snake. They don't chew on cables and unlike a cat, they hunt out rats nests. A good rat snake(s) will eat most if not all of the litters and that can do more to get rid of your population than anything else.

Re:Three options

[Anonymous Coward]

Use STEEL WOOL the rats hate it. That really helped us.

Re:Three options

[Idaho]

When they come across a foreign substance (a seed, a fruit, a piece of garbage, a nice shiny cable), they'll try a few bites of it. if it makes them sick, they throw it up and remember not to eat it again- apparently they have very good memory.

The first part is probably true, the second part isn't, AFAIK: rats can't throw up. It is physically impossible for them. This is also why they have such a very good memory for what they can and can't eat, and only try a small amount the first time. If they get sick they just have to wait it out basically, and hope they survive. This is why surviving rats learn very well to be careful, and remember insanely well what made them sick.

This is probably why you have to use bio-accumulative poisons to kill rats, I suppose. (And even then they might still learn because they recognize the smell on other dead rats!)

Re:Three options

[Shakrai]

Now, (under 99.9999% of all merchant agreements) merchants are not allowed to verify signatures

Says who? Our merchant agreement says that we are supposed to verify signatures.

or ask for ID.

Your right about that part. Mastercard will actually fine you if you ask for ID or post minimum purchase amounts. Visa isn't as aggressive (in my experience) but can do the same thing if they get a bug up their butt.

The push for RFID chips is not about security, it's about shifting the burden on the user, instead of the banks.

The burden has never been on the banks. If my card is lost and used to buy $2,000 worth of crap at Best Buy then Best Buy is going to be out the money when they lose the chargeback. You think the bank is going to allow themselves to take the hit? Can I have some of what you are smoking?

And what push for RFID chips? Other than a handful of novelty credit cards I've never come across them.

Re:Three options

[AaronW]

I second this. If you can see the hole stuff it tightly with steel wool. I had a constant problem until I used steel wool to plug the entry point.

Re:Three options

[AsmordeanX]

Steel wool works great but isn't advised for long term use. It is flammable and if it gets wet it rusts and makes a nasty mess.

Copper wool costs more but is just as effective with the benefit that spark won't ignite it and when it gets wet it basically stays the same.

Re:Three options

[darrylo]

Cats need to be TAUGHT how to catch mice by their mother, while they're still young. If they're not taught, they're probably not going to think of mice as food (or toys).

Re:Cats ?

[Tetsujin]

Cats have been used widely to get rid of rats and mice since the beginning of time. perhaps you should get some of those ?

Not all cats are good mousers, however. It really helps to have one who was properly taught by their mama-cat how to do it.

THe Old Ways Are Often The Best.

[senorpoco]

.22 air rifle, 3 Beers and 2 cans of Redbull. Make a night of it.

Cats kill rats just fine

[EmbeddedJanitor]

Our cats kill rats in the barn and house just fine. They started doing this as kittens (4 months old or so). The adult cats will even kill rabbits.

These are just regular sized cats with no ninja training.

Rats will happily rip a hole through drywall so don't really care if you block up holes. I blocked up some holes with chew-proof material and the bastards just ripped another hole.

If you have rats inside, then the chances are that they are an overflow population from somewhere else. We didn't have rats in the house until the population built up in the barn and the "turf wars" pushed some of the rats into the house. As soon as we killed a lot of the rats in the barn they disappeared from the house.

Re:Cats kill rats just fine

[Chyeld]

Yes, because a lucky kill on a pet creature that hasn't learned itself how to survive as prey is the same thing as actually being a skillful and cunning hunter capable of not just surviving on what you bring in, but being able to catch live prey to bring to your litter to train them on how to do it.

Yes, all cats have instincts. That doesn't mean they are ready killers from the git go. When I was a teenager, my family moved from suburbia to a farm. Our house pets were transitioned from house pet to yard pet.

Yes, the cat stalked the rodents. Yes the dog would chase and even sometimes tree coon's and dillos. But neither of them had a freaking clue what to do then, and most of the time even failed at that. When they did manage to catch some sick or terminally stupid creature, half the time they'd play with it not having gained the 'kill reflex' when they were young. Half the time they'd bite at it ineffectively in random spots. Neither of them ever got the "grab the neck" instinct or in the case of the dog, the "shake vigorously" instinct.

Contrast that to the cats and dogs that came after, the ones that actually came from litters that were raised and born outside and I guarantee you that you'll immediately notice what I'm talking about.

Since their children have moved out a long time ago, my folks have salved their 'empty nest' syndrome by keeping a colony of cats and a couple of dogs. Although most are born 'wild', a good number of them are still 'take ins' from people my parents know in the community who need a good home for their cats and you can ALWAYS tell the difference between the ones who grew up knowing how to kill and the ones that didn't.

Not the humane society

[nsayer]

You were probably kidding, but I'd like to point out that our local humane society has rules against adopting out animals for the purpose of pest management or hunting.

A lot of the suggestions here won't work.

[smellsofbikes]

I have/had a similar set of problems.
1. I've owned pet rats and know what they can eat.
2. I currently own house rabbits.
3. I have a recurring mouse problem.

So lemme sum up. A rabbit can eat through a 14 gauge stranded copper cord of the sort you'd use for your refrigerator. Guess how I figured that out? Since it's starting at one side it doesn't ever cross both the live and neutral, so it doesn't get electrocuted. It can eat every cord off the back of a computer in under three minutes. Guess how I figured that out? A rat doesn't have quite the toothy abilities of a rabbit but it's fairly close. They can certainly cut through thin copper.
Neither the rabbits nor the rats -- nor my dog -- have been bothered by sprays intended to keep animals from digging/chewing on things. The super hot pepper-derived stuff stopped the rabbits but not the rats, and my dog loves the stuff. The sour/bitter stuff didn't slow any of them down even slightly.
Plastic split conduit doesn't even slow them down. Even when soaked in bitter or hot do-not-chew stuff.
Rats can chew through the side of a lead pipe and crawl through a hole the size of a US quarter. I don't have evidence that they can chew through copper pipe but I wouldn't be surprised.
Reducing food doesn't work. Once they're established, you can't keep the place clean enough. I have no idea how wild mice manage to find nutrition but they do. We keep all our food in sealed containers and vacuum and roomba every other day, and neither the dog nor the sometimes cat deter the mice in the slightest. The mice do, however, drive the dog and the cat completely insane, so if you want to have your predator madly clawing at the wall where it can either hear or smell a mouse, go for it. Both dogs and clawed cats can dig through standard drywall, and then you have a repair to do. (and they remember it and keep trying. Pitbulls are very, very retentive dogs and she'll dig through 12mm thick plywood to get to where she remembers a mouse or rat or squirrel to have hidden, once, six months ago.)

hate to say it but d-con and other awful poisons are probably the best way to go, as far as eradication, and flexible conduit to protect the lines you can't easily replace.

As I said elsewhere, glue traps are probably more evil than poison, and oftentimes live traps are as well, because you don't check them often enough and the animal dies of dehydration. And if you're really lucky the animal will manage to drag the glue trap into a place you can't get to and if you're young and still have good ears you can hear its little high-pitched screams for a couple days before it does die.