How To Keep Rats From Eating My Cables?

An anonymous reader writes "I am curious to know what vermin prevention/eradication methods are used in other locations. I am working at a dealership and we have an exterminator man who puts out glue traps and bait stations, but they still come and eat my cable. The latest was a couple of fiber runs — very expensive. I have threatened my boss with a cat for the server room (my office), going so far as to cruise the local Humane Society's website and eye-balling a nice Ragdoll-Siamese mix. Even if I do feel like dealing with a litter box, cat hair in the equipment and pouncings on my keyboards (and I'm not sure I do), that only covers the server room. We have multiple buildings on the campus which get locked up to prevent theft, but it isn't secure enough to keep out the critters and the latest chew spot was in the ceiling. Any ideas?"

How about F.E.A.R. 2 cats?

[InfinityWpi]

*glances at the article below this one*

One of the editors couldn't wait to put these two together, could they?

Snakes

[hodagacz]

A couple of Ball pythons in the cable runs, and those rats will be history as will anybody poking around where they're not supposed to...

I think it starts with lizards...

[PotatoFarmer]

Well, you could always introduce some sort of lizards to eat the rats. And then, after the lizard population explodes you could...uh, well, I'm not sure of the exact steps, but I think it all ends up with gorillas freezing to death in the winter. Or something like that.

Use Cat-5 cable

[Jeremi]

Mice are five times more afraid of it.

Instill Fear

[Nyall]

Mount their little heads on spikes.

Re:Three options

[deraj123]

Have you ever seen a car dealership on a college campus?

Sounds like a great idea though. College kids are notorious for irresponsible use of credit. (Really, my friend bought a car on his American Express while in college...).

Boring

[Roger W Moore]

Use high voltage cables and let evolution do the rest.

But this is the right movie

[auric_dude]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Willard_1971.jpg [wikipedia.org]

Re:Snakes

[Anonymous Coward]

Is there any problem Python *can't* solve?

Re:Boring

[bugs2squash]

My god - high voltage resistant rats

Re:Remove food, remove rats

[jo42]

He also needs to find out what wise ass coated his cables with peanut butter - and take appropriate retaliatory measures.

Re:The Simple Option

[SpuriousLogic]

Glue traps are the absolute worst! Anyone here ever think of what happens? The mouse gets stuck on the trap until it dies from starvation or dehydration. Plan old spring loaded mouse traps work great, and kill it instantly. Although, have a sick story on the glue traps. 20 years ago in HS, working at McDs, I had a cheap manager and a lot of mice. He bought glue traps, and wanted to "reuse" them. By reuse, he thought he could just pull the mouse off the trap. We, he is pulling on that tail, and that mouse is squeaking like hell, and he pulled so hard he pulled the damn spine out of the mouse. The was a quick end to the glue traps and the real exterminators came in the next day.

What RIAA executives are eating cable?

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Is it the last stand and the final gasp of RIAA lawyers trying to stop the downloads. What? you mean REAL rats? oops.

Re:Boring

[orclevegam]

My god - high voltage resistant rats

You sir win 2 internets and owe me a new monitor and keyboard.

it sounds like you have tasty content

[circletimessquare]

stop all streaming video of "ratatouille" and blog posts of rat porn, and start serving up content that rats don't like. introduce random packets of lolcat jppegs, maybe streaming video of "mrs frisby and the rats of nimh". you'll soon find the rats aren't as interested anymore at chewing into your cables to get to the content on your network, as they will find it unappealing

Re:Remove food, remove rats

[SatanicPuppy]

Can't have been peanut butter...The rats are still alive.

Re:Three options

[Shakrai]

(Really, my friend bought a car on his American Express while in college...).

If he waited a few years he could have defaulted on it and gotten a Governmental bailout ;)

Re:Three options

[Rei]

But what if it's not mice or rats at all? What if it's Chuck Mangione, living in the dealership, trying to shut off network access to prevent sales?

Re:Snakes

[whoever57]

You mean, "Snakes in a dealership"! One problem: you will need many snakes to eat all the rats

It's a dealership. There are snakes there already. The problem is that they usually eat only human food and are commonly found on the sales floor, chasing the few remaining customers.

Re:Boring

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep. If evolution is going to do its work, we will see soon coming from this guy "campus" rats that are high-voltage resistant, can't be poisoned, can live eating only rubber cables, and are smart enough to figure out the guy's passwords.
So, let's brace ourselves for the super-internet-mega-rats...

Pied Piper

[roesti]

Have you considered dressing up as a minstrel and playing some music? Apparently, that's worked before.

Re:Three options

[Lumpy]

If they try to get rid of all the rats, then who will sell the cars??

Oh you mean the furry rodent type... Gotcha!

Re:Three options

[stonedcat]

For someone who has had pet rats you sure are a sadistic bastard when it comes to killing them....

Re:Three options

[The_mad_linguist]

You notice he used the past tense.

Funny rat/cat story

[Anonymous Coward]

I once saw a rat run into my garage, and I had heard that cat urine would make them leave so I scooped some used clay litter into a bucket and put it into the garage. I went back the next day and THE RAT HAD EATEN THE FUCKING LITTER!

Rats are real badasses.

Re:Three options

[Tekfactory]

I haven't read the other posts to see if its is mentioned, but Wideband has demonstrated their gear to offer Gigabit over Barb-wire lets see them chew the insulation off that.

https://www.wband.com/Products/mAcrobat/WBproductflyer.pdf [wband.com]

Re:Three options

[ptx0]

He could mean a drug dealership. College students tend to purchase marijuana, which in turn gives the munchies. Lots of food.

Re:Three options

[ptx0]

Canadian Bobcats are only slightly larger (1.25x) the size of a standard tomcat, and will not eat humans.. They do like rats, however.

Re:Three options

[Velorium]

Have you ever seen rats in a dealership?

Re:Three options

[Chyeld]

Great, now we are going to have Canadian cats stealing, hard working, American cat's jobs.

Re:Three options

[Shakrai]

regardless of whether the cat is actually a good mouser, it's your responsibility to give it a good home

That would be the luck. Convince your boss to let you get a cat and then you get something as fat and lazy as my girlfriends cat. She watched a mouse walk across the living room floor once and didn't move. Umm, why exactly are we keeping a roof over your head and feeding you if you aren't gonna pull your weight again?

Re:Three options

[Xtravar]

Personally, I think he should adopt a bunch of cats AND put out the poison. But I guess this is why I'm not a consultant.

Re:Three options

[evanbd]

Unlike those kind-hearted hippy-type stoned cats?

Re:Three options

[DiLLeMaN]

That, or "everything is bigger in America, including Bobcats" bragging.

as Ripley would say...

[WoodsDweller]

Take off and nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

Re:Three options

[Abreu]

If they try to get rid of all the rats, then who will sell the cars??

Oh you mean the furry rodent type... Gotcha!

Hah, I see your car dealers and raise you with timeshare sales guys

Believe me, I work with them and I can't believe that kind of crap they make people believe

Don't use a shotgun - seriously!

[buss_error]

Had a customer with a motorcycle shop that had a rat problem. His dog (Jack Russel) went nuts one day, and the owner pulled out a sawed off shotgun and promptly put a hole through the wall.

Exit one rat, four servers, a 440 volt three phase power line, air conditioning condenser, and five twinax runs. Add to damages the vet bill (pellets hit the dog), the doctor bill (pellets hit the owner), and my added expense to replace the servers, bring them from cold to hot, re-running the twin-ax cables, and the $5,000.00 USD (and this was back 15 years or so ago, call it about 8,000 USD today) for, and I quote:

"Extraordinary charge recovery for work location
in a free fire zone without body armor or hearing
protection".

He paid it.

The rat? We buried it without honors or marking it's grave.

Re:Three options

[Myopic]

Interesting. I automatically assumed a weed dealer.

Re:Three options

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of the farms I'm familiar with have a colony of cats living in each barn.

Can You Imagine a Beowulf Cluster of these cats?

Re:Three options Make it a SHOCKING exper

[davidsyes]

ience.

Use *ELECTRIFIED* steel wool. Better yet, use electrified, salted copper wool. It'll give them the whoolies when they become part victims in as(sau)lt and battery. All the following rats will hopefully learn to go away because they'll be inextricably charged in current events...

Re:Three options

[danbert8]

I am a civil engineer, and I can tell you I would definitely enjoy killing rats with a bobcat...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobcat_(equipment) [wikipedia.org]

Re:Rabbits

[Attila Dimedici]

May I recommend rabbit stew? It will serve two purposes. One, the rabbit will no longer chew through cables. Two, it is a very tasty dinner. Although if your girlfriend finds out, you will probably need to find a replacement (for the girlfriend, not the rabbit).

Re:Three options... Floss of Steel!

[davidsyes]

I say, set up some tripwires for the rats. Bait them with Ratkensteins, or Frankenrats and treats to eat.

When they are scurrying about in the dark, on the wire-mesh-gridded floor, one or more of them trigger/s the 25 or so hidden Tesla coils that pop up like Bouncing Betty grenades. Only, these go vertical with wires, and with dart tips, they affix to the ceiling, as zapping and humming set off a cascade of:

Sqweee-squeee-squee squee, Sqweee-squeee-squee squee (multiplied by how many are getting the charge of their lives)

And, the problem is solved (nightly) with a

ratta-tat-tat.

Of course, mind your voltage, amperage, and other effects, or you'll have body parts stuck on the walls, racks, chairs, and lights. Talk about turning IT/server room into a chamber of horrors.

Re:Three options... Floss of Steel!

[davidsyes]

Don't forget to have plenty of Lysol on hand, because with all that arcing and sparking there will be a lot of hissin' and pissin'..

But, a cleaner way to deal with this is to hook up a bunch of Habitrails to the rooms. When the trap doors close, gas their asses, or, if you run electrified wires all inside the tubes, you can you can shock them into the age of the Intertubes, and transmit their doomed souls into the ether, semi-wirelessly. The ones caught 7 feet off the floor will be in nose-bleed city, with a spectacular view, bright lights, and euphoric gas before meeting doom.

Be sure to hook up a flushing system, and be sure your doper friends don't see this as a hyooge fuqin hooka system.

Re:Three options

[xeoron]

I once had a dog that loved to play fetch with rocks... it was so bad that if someone threw a ball, then she usually returned with a rock. For a few days we covered any rock she would give us us to throw for her with very hot Tabasco sauce. It worked for about a day, but then she realized if she dropped it into the pool it would be just like new. We gave up the covering approach soon after that. That and playing reverse fetch with a dog to get their rock from the deep end of the pool became rather annoying.

No Cat

[Anonymous Coward]

What ever you do. Do not get a cat named Sylvester!

Re:Three options

[pyro_peter_911]

Please submitter: have your company hire or consult someone who knows what they are doing when it comes to pest control. You worry about the computers. I don't know what on earth possessed you ask other I.T. nerds for advice either.

Pshaw. When you have a nerd problem, you need a nerd solution.

Caesium-137 [wikipedia.org] is radioactive, toxic, and liquid at slightly above room temperature. Warm it up to melt it, then pour it all along your cable paths.

Better still, Technetium-99 [wikipedia.org] is a gamma emitter. Let's see... Technetium melts at around 4000 degrees F, so wear some gloves when you're pouring it along your cabling. Soon, the gamma radiation will scramble the rat's DNA causing them to grow to a Rodent of Unusual Size [sortingoutscience.net] at which point the rats will no longer be interested in eating mere cabling.

You could always buy a Mousetrap [amazon.com] which will give you something to do while waiting for the Technetium to melt.

There are some mousetrap [youtube.com] videos that you might also reference.

Peter

Capsaicin does not forgive

[mpgalvin]

and the next time a cable tech rubs his brow...

"OH GAWD MY EYE"

Network cables

[Skevin]

Don't get just one cat. Get more than one. Get several.

You're right - Cat 1 and Cat 2 will probably do nothing. Most people won't even think they exist. Cat 3 will do most of the work, but won't harrass rats beyond 100 meters. Cat 4 needs motivation - give it a small token, like a ring.

Cat 5 can be faster than Cat 3, but like Cat 3, speed and response begin to attenuate after 100 meters. They start dropping packets, which should promptly be buried in the litter box. In the event that rodents bite back, you should consider shielding Cat 5.

Cat 6 is extremely fast with very little latency, but inflexible and difficult to work with. I use them in my fruit pantry, where rats ate "twisted pears"

Re:Three options... Floss of Steel!

[EdIII]

2 questions....

1) What the FUCK are you smoking?

and

2) Can I have some?

Re:Battle Stations!!!

[nickruiz]

A human discovers them struggling in the trap and kills them. Not a popular option with many people, who frequently opt to throw the living rat in the garbage can (see #2 above.) If you find one, my best suggestion is to bash their skulls hard and quickly with a blunt instrument. Be decisive, don't just give them a bump on the head and expect them to die. A shovel or ice chopper works, too. Drowning is a very poor choice -- I still feel guilty about that one. :-(

You should teach a Mob ethics class.

Re:Three options

[Verdatum]

Ah, 'Ask Slashdot'...Next time I want a drawn on discussion about requirements for credit card merchants, I too will submit a question about rats eating my cables. What the original submitter did not realize is to have his actual question answered, he should have asked about, oh, I dunno, "What's the best brand of electron microscope for computer forensic data recovery?" and allow the topic to mysteriously wander into discussing rats eating cables, as it is constantly modded up.

Re:Three options

[Myopic]

No, we like to use fuzzy handcuffs, they chafe less. But that's totally off topic.