JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — "I had no idea," said Ann Blount about the bad news a rat or rats chewed up her engine. She didn't even know such a thing could happen.
Her repair bill? "Ten thousand dollars," she says.
Blount lives at the Beaches. She says when she tried to start her car it "just shuddered."
She believes it was the work of a palm rat.
Not too far away, at the Cypress Village retirement community off San Pablo, several residents believe it was raccoons that attacked their car engines.
Their repair bills range in the hundreds of dollars, even over a thousand.
"It's terribly frustrating," says Roberta Spurrier. Her first repair bill was $800. Then the next time he says it was $1600.
Spurrier says her son-in-law saw the raccoon.
Marijane Sipple says her car damage was so significant that the garage told her not safe to drive my car back home.
At Arlington Toyota, Service Manager Suljo Packovich says animal infestations of the engine is "a very common problem."
He says it gets worse as the weather turns cool and rodents like warmer spots, such as under the hood.
"It doesn't matter if you live in the woods or in the city," Packovish says.
Apparently, his shop workers say, rats and squirrels are attracted to some chemical in the coating of the wires.
The solution? Blount had Arlington Toyota install a 'Mouse Blocker' under the hood of her car. It has a loud sound and flashes a light to try and scare off rodents. She also uses peppermint spray because, supposedly, rodents don't like that, but it won't poison them.
She worries owls eat the mice, and she doesn't want to kill owls.
Lou Jacobs at Cypress has tried WD40, but it seemed to attract the creatures, rather than repel them. Now he's trying to spray Raid with a lavender scent under his hood. But he smiles and says, "maybe they'll like this, too."
Hope not. But he's giving it a try.
The repair bills are just too expensive.