An unpleasant surprise today when I opened the bonnet.
The animal(s) peeled off a wad of soundproofing material and have prepared a nest. Right in front of an ultrasonic device that obviously doesn't what I installed it for and also the smell of diesel is no repellant.

Rats really like Ducato camper vans. The wiring is very tasty and there are numerous holes where they can build their nests or enter the interior and play with whatever is there. Fiat uses some sort of paper tape to close the hollow chassis parts, but that dries out within a couple of years. I used wire mesh to cover holes after a whole family decided to use the van as a winter resort. They slept and peed in my bed, ate a bag of licorice I forgot to remove and chewed on fabric, paper and plastic. They also ate 3/4 of the air filter so I also treated the air entrance of the filter housing as well....

I found them in the engine bay,sleeping on the rocker cover.
They had pooped everywhere

its not just Ducatos, they love all fiats, i had one in a panda that ate a hole right through the passenger seat.

No Rats here yet but Pine Martens chewed through some wiring on Mine.

Not cute!

In the workshop it's not uncommon to find rabbits, cats, mice, birds etc when working on vehicles.

i had a bird in my bmc cda once

T14086 said:

In the workshop it's not uncommon to find rabbits, cats, mice, birds etc when working on vehicles.

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On our island in the Adriatic sea, vermin comes in waves. One year we have billions of caterpillars, the next year it's rats, then martens etc. They cannot escape, there's always one species feeding on another. Last year thousands of large grasshoppers appeared, ruining the gardens, entering houses where they ate from curtains and bedsheets.

A few years ago rats destroyed a large part of the wiring loom in my Kia Sorento, cut holes in the air filter housing, the headlamps and made a comfortable nest in the radial fan of the air conditioning. All this happened within one week when we (and the dog) weren't there!
These are not the cautious black rats, but brown ones with a white belly (Rattus Norvegicus). That makes them easier to catch in a trap, They do not learn from mistakes.

CDK said:

Rattus Norvegicus

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The Stranglers rule :slayer:

My dog suddenly showed interest in the van again, so this morning I removed the right headlamp unit and found new damage.
There's one big rat that seems impossible to catch. It ignores whatever bait I offer and also avoids the expensive electronic trap that killed his/hers offspring some weeks ago.
Because there are plenty of grapes and tomatoes in the garden, the animal isn't interested in food, it just want to make a cozy place to sleep.