Man Vs. Rat: One Professor’s Quest To Protect His Car
He might be the poster child, but it's become a nationwide problem.
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Even if you’ve never been to New York City, the “pizza rat” meme serves as evidence that the Big Apple is home to some pretty brazen rodents. And for theater professor Tom Marion, his 2015 Toyota Prius bears the scars to prove it.
Every trick in the book
With roughly 2 million rats roaming the streets of New York City, a few cars are bound to be vandalized by these critters here and there. And when locals cut down significantly on their driving during the pandemic, the number of these incidents rose since cars were just sitting around for days at a time.
But that doesn’t explain why Marion’s Prius has become such an attractive target. He’s up to at least four rat break-ins as of the last count … and that’s despite his valiant efforts to thwart his four-legged foes.
He’s done his research, resulting in strategies including:
- Changing where he parks his car
- Covering his engine in a garlic scent
- Wrapping mint-flavored tape around the ignition wires
It must be a conspiracy, he concluded — and an expensive one at that. The incidents have cost either him directly or his insurance company thousands of dollars to repair the damage.
Marion concluded: “They will find you. And they all know each other and they talk to each other.”
But it’s not just him
Marion might be an outlier based on the number of times he’s been targeted, but similar cases have been reported throughout NYC and across the country.
One Reddit post last month received a ton of replies from people with similar stories and others who offered tips to stop the attacks.
In just one year beginning in July 2022, insurance providers processed more than 91,700 claims of car damage caused by rodents and other small animals.
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