nyc: I live in a good neighborhood of NYC, upper west side. Rats come out and pick at garbage left for pick up, but eat it inside engines of cars parked in the street. Sometimes they build nests. We have tried moth balls, disinfectant sprays, without success. If you set traps in the engines, the rats do great damage. Any suggestions?|||Talk to an exterminator. You don't want to use rat poison as a cat or a dog could get into it. The exterminator should have some suggestions. Even moving your car every day, the rats could build a nest overnight. Let's see, leaving your car running with the window cracked is definitely an invitation to theives, plus it would only fill the passenger compartment with carbon monoxide, not the engine compartment.|||Rats (and other rodents) in cars are a serious problem. One expensive car had about $25,000 worth of damage from rodents. Mothballs and other scents do not work. Read more about it here: http://hitchhikinganimals.blogspot.com/2009/10/mice-ate-my-car-support-group-needed.html Report Abuse |||buy a ferret! they are a rats worst nightmare Report Abuse |||Unappetizing as it may sound, my best suggestion would be filling a plastic trash bin (like you would find in a school classroom) with water about three quarters of the way. The rest of this set up can be done two different ways, depending on where you are placing the trash bin: 1) Hang a bottle cap from the ceiling so that it almost breaks level with the top of the trash bin. (You may do this by poking a hole in the top of the cap, putting a string through the hole and tying a knot so that the cap can not slip off.) Then fill the cap with peanut butter. Place a ramp going from the floor to the lip of the can. The rat will climb the ramp, try to get the peanut butter, fall into the trash bin and drown. 2) The second method is no different from the first, except instead of hanging a bottle cap, put the peanut butter directly onto the lip of the trash bin, opposite the side on which you place the ramp. Having tried multiple other methods during a two week session at a camp in Rhinelander, Wisconsin (including glue traps, poison, and snap traps) I can give you my personal recommendation for this tactic. We drowned about four rats in one night. Works like a charm. Good luck!|||do as you would to commit suicide, take a long tube and put one end on the exhaust pipe then the other in the slightly open window and leave the car on. That will kill them. Leaving you with dead rats and a smelly car.|||Buy more cats.|||I am fairly certain that when the car moves the rat will move also. So do not give it another moment of your time. Be more worried about how can a city that is supposed to be so civilised and rich , have such a rodent problem. Only countries that I am aware that have such a problem, are third world country cities.|||Oh no don't kill the poor rats! They're soooo cute!|||Try to handle them with Love and care