OK, may be not the whole thing, but they had a good start.

This might be one of the very few down-sides of living in the woods. In my case it was not a big deal but I heard that others had much worse experiences.

Here’s what went down: I noticed my windows were pretty dirty, last time I was down in the valley, and, lazy as I am, I just used the windshield washer to remedy the situation – or wanted to. No water leaving the nozzles in the hood. First thought that I just ran out water in the system. But, next time when I parked, I opened the door and operated the washer, I heard the motor whirring – which was a good thing – but I also saw water running out from under the car. That certainly meant that I did not run out of water, but that most likely the water line had popped off somewhere.

So, I did something which I had not done  for a while – I opened the hood to look where the line had come loose with the idea to just put it back on.

To my surprise I found nestled between the part of the exhaust manifold – a nest – and in that nest a piece of the water line that was supposed to connect the reservoir with the nozzles on the hood. Funny enough, the car manufacturer had also provided softer part of the nest material – from the sound proofing material clued on the inside of the hood. My suspicion that the culprit was a squirrel is based on the fact that there were still a few acorns in the nest – just for colder winter times to come.

I can only imagine the terror of the poor inhabitants when I had gotten into the car last time and started the engine!

The car was due for a tune-up, so I requested that this little damage was fixed as well and learned at that time that I was one of the lucky ones. the auto shop had customers with thousands of dollars of damage. The mechanic and proprietor told me that so many remedies had been tried and failed. Ultra-sonic pest repeller – no go. Cleaning the engine and spraying with oil – no effect.

He had heard of only one trick that worked – give them something better. This creative car owner had, when he needed to leave his car alone for a few days, put some cat food in the close vicinity of the car parts that had been previously served as dinner. This way the visitors feasted on better digestible food and left the unhealthy plastic and rubber do the things they were intended for. A win-win situation: less cost for the car owner and healthier rodents.

Squirrels ate my car - starting with this hose