Nocturnal gnawing

[msr]

With the coming of colder weather a gnawing was heard in the middle of the night, tracked down to the floorboards beneath baseboard carrying the steelworks. Lifting them up revealed much of the cable insulation had been removed.



Clearly someone has developed a taste for insulation, or perhaps the promise of copper within. This was confirmed as being the result of a hungry mouse and dealt with by the pest control officer the following day, and the cable replaced by the electrician a week later. The rolling mill is once again rolling and steel trains are running as they should.

Has anyone else had a similar problem?

[TrevL]

Guessing your in the southern hemisphere, here in the UK it's getting warmer, but not by much.

[guest311]

luckily no, but you were lucky that a short didn't occur and start a fire.

[port perran]

Just before Winter we had scratching in the loft.
No railway involved but it was noisy at night.
So.....one week later and with five traps per night we had caught 15 of the blighters.
They were getting in via an underground hole next to the conservatory and then up through the rubble cavity in the wall (we live in a 200 year old cottage).

[Stuart7358]

Yes, similar problem with mice attacking the cables in my loft until some bait sorted them. They are not hungry but find cables very convenient for wearing their teeth down, as rats/mice teeth grow constantly. If it wasn't the cables they would go for something else to chew on.
Understand they can also go for car wiring too, but some manufacturers also use Soy based products to replace plastic insolation now and these can attract vermin even more.   

[Trainfish]

I used to work on grain storage plants and it was a frequent issue to find rats or mice had got at the cables. They usually only eat the insulation, not the copper and the only short you usually get is where the actual mouse/rat has shorted himself (or herself) across the cables. The copper wires themselves usually stay apart. If there is any kind of short the circuit will usually trip anyway. The best 1 I found was a rat which had got into a busbar and shorted himself across 415V (3-phase). He was still there when I found him but he certainly won't do it again.

[Bealman]

I heard a similar sound last week, but it was my wife in the fridge getting midnight munchies 

[NinOz]

Understand they can also go for car wiring too,

A few years ago we had a mouse plague.  One had setup house in my car in the engine bay.  Had chewed through a couple of wires, one of which adjusted the fuel/air mix so would idle but no go above 1500RPM.  Soldering iron fixed the problem.  Little bleeders ruined a couple of woolen jumpers and several blankets.  Used the fibres to make a nice nest.  Also ate through the Al ducting for stove extractor, had to replace the lot, looked like it had suffered some shotgun blasts along the length of the duct.

[chrism]

Understand they can also go for car wiring too,

A few years ago we had a mouse plague.  One had setup house in my car in the engine bay.  Had chewed through a couple of wires, one of which adjusted the fuel/air mix so would idle but no go above 1500RPM.  Soldering iron fixed the problem. 

I remember seeing a story in the news about someone who's car was running very badly so they took it to the garage. Upon investigation the mechanic found the air filter box stuffed completely full of hazelnuts - no wonder it didn't run very well

[Trainfish]

.......... the mechanic found the air filter box stuffed completely full of hazelnuts .............

[daffy]

.......... the mechanic found the air filter box stuffed completely full of hazelnuts .............

That made me snicker.

[JasonBz]

I have had similar occurrences

Its the "frequency" (for want of a better word) of the electricity, not the wires that attracts rodents.

It is also a major cause of house fires, so not to be laughed about really.