Squirrels vs. Cars

You never know what a squirrel might do next.

One seems to have gotten its revenge against a car in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, by building a nest under the hood. (See today's Ramblin' column in The Gazette.)

Esther and John McCandless of Cedar Rapids wondered why their 2001 Ford Focus wouldn't start the other day. Sure, it had been parked for more than a month, with John only going out to start it once during that time. When he tried to start it again May 8, the lights would come on but the engine wouldn't turn over. Sounded like a dead battery.

But, when John popped the hood, he discovered that a squirrel had invaded his territory. A nest made up of insulation from the firewall rested between the front fender and the battery. A deep nest, it looked like the perfect place for a squirrel to hole up for a while.

"When I mowed the lawn, I saw a squirrel take off," John says. "I didn't know it was living in my car at the time."

Another day, before the car was parked, John spotted a squirrel's hind legs beneath the engine. The squirrel was standing up as if investigating the car. He was probably scouting out a good place to build that nest.

As we all know, squirrels and cars don't mix. Usually, though, it's the car that gets the best of the squirrel, as road kill attests.

But, occasionally, a squirrel gets the best of a car.

John recalled seeing a picture of a car with the engine buried in nuts -- apparently the squirrel had used it for storage.

I searched the Internet and learned that a lot of folks have trouble with squirrels (and mice) in the engine compartment. While some people say there's nothing you can do, others swear by everything from a little Tobasco sauce to shaved pieces of Irish Spring soap. Still others say you need to trap the squirrel and take it elsewhere.

A couple of years ago, in Bayonne, NJ, a woman was sitting home when she looked out the window to see her car burst into flames. It turns out a squirrel chewed through a power line above the parked car, caught fire, then fell down into the car and slid into the engine compartment where it ignited the car.

Hard to believe, but many stories involving squirrels are.

One insurance agent had this tale: Some claims can be a little suspicious to say the least. Take the time a man claimed a frozen squirrel had fallen out of a tree, crashed through his windscreen and landed on the passenger seat. Well, we suppose it isn't completely outside the zone of possibility. All we can conclude is that it must have been a very cold winter...