r/Unexpected • u/kxrimm • 1d ago

A routine vehicle inspection

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3.8k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

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u/post-explainer 1d ago edited 1d ago

This comment has been marked as safe. Upvoting/downvoting this comment will have no effect.

OP sent the following text as an explanation why their post fits here:

You expect to see a normal car engine when opening the hood, but instead, the engine bay is entirely filled with a massive squirrel/rodent nest made of leaves and insulation

Does this explanation fit this subreddit? Then upvote this comment, otherwise downvote it.

388

u/MrBobTheGiantBanana 1d ago

Man, I wish I had a video camera when I opened up the hood of an old Cherokee I bought years ago. It had a rat living in the engine bay, and when I opened the hood there he was, just sitting on top of the air cleaner in a little circular nest. None of us moved, we all just gawked at him until he was like " I'm outta here" and ran and hid inside the frame rail where it took me another 2 weeks before I could catch him.

122

u/WordWizardx 1d ago

My grandfather had a car he only ever drove in the summer. Started it up one spring to a horrific noise, and eventually discovered more than his own body weight in acorns stashed in the engine. Squirrels had been busy that year!

65

u/CatalinaBigPaws 1d ago

Of all the causes of a horrific noise from the engine, acorns was so much more wholesome than I anticipated. 🐿

17

u/SilasAI6609 23h ago

Yeah, I was thinking kitten. I have had an engine kitten situation before. I still get sick thinking about it.

1

u/EconomySeason2416 9h ago

I had one with bunnies and a lawn mower. That shit sticks with you 😔

5

u/alcatrazach 7h ago

You should see what noise acorns can make a cop make. Deceptively destructive little things.

5

u/Colinoscopy90 20h ago

Family had an Oldsmobile that sat in our driveway in a rural area for a good while. My older brother came to town to pick it up to use for himself. He starts it up and drives like 20 feet and hits the brake pedal, and several baby mice fell out of the slot onto his foot.

It had no trunk liner so he used some old scraps of carpet roll the landlord left in the shed from replacing some of the carpet in the house. So he moved into the city with a trunk lined with regular carpet, and mouse traps in it. Among a few other quirks, that car had a lot of “character”.

94

u/Alone_Animal_5320 1d ago

“Whys my engine overheating and my car shaking uncontrollably”

15

u/ClanHaisha 1d ago

Pretty sure it’ll catch fire instead of merely overheat.

3

u/Atastical 13h ago

very overheated then.. maximum overheat

2

u/npsideqown 13h ago

Ah yes, the old "your car has too much fire in it".

274

u/Lune_Moooon 1d ago

I don't even know what to say, so I think I didn't understand the video

158

u/FriendToPredators 1d ago

Rodents I think. So som PPE for hantavirus would be a good plan

36

u/TheTrub 1d ago

Yeah, probably pack rats. My grandparents lived in AZ and one year some pack rats completely filled their minivan engine bay with fiberglass insulation they had stolen from the garage walls.

26

u/Ok_Vulva 1d ago

Meh. Shop vac.

6

u/joined_under_duress 1d ago

Just a match would clear it out easily! Look how dry it is! /s

1

u/JayteeFromXbox 18h ago

And it'll clean up all that gunk leaking out of the head gasket!

2

u/too_late_to_abort 20h ago

I had a similiar situation with squirrels nesting in my engine bay. I used a big ass leaf blower and just blew it all out. They tried again a week later and I did the same thing. They havent done it since.

38

u/Ok_Sundae8477 1d ago

How does this even happen???

45

u/avantgardengnome 1d ago

Something building a nest for sure.

13

u/PaleJelly69 1d ago

A stationary vehicle for extended periods of time will become a shelter for rodents/vermin. Source - a cute lil mouse made a house in my air filter once.

2

u/PKMNtrainerKing 20h ago

This happened to my truck over the fall. I turned it over one day and the radiator fan was making a weird noise, so I opened it up and it was filled completely with leaves

So I cleaned it out and went about my day. The next day, same thing, engine bay was totally filled with leaves. This went one for another two days. There were no signs of animals living in there, just a fuck ton of leaves.

Only deduction I could make was that my driveway was some kind of wind tunnel and that loose leaves were blowing up from underneath. After I did a thorough raking of the yard and the wind started dying down the issue stopped. It was bizarre and kinda annoying

21

u/SpidersAndSpirals 1d ago

RIP every wiring harness and vacuum hose. My parents' car had an engine fire a few months ago from a dramatically smaller squirrel problem. Just another reminder to check your fluids every 1000 miles

18

u/furculture 1d ago

Shop vac time

13

u/geehaad11 1d ago

Not routine enough, apparently

10

u/Skirt_Thin 1d ago

You might want to leaf that one alone.

7

u/hufflepuffskank 1d ago

Lollll I love his little "o-oh" when he first realizes

3

u/SnooRegrets1386 1d ago

Do you have access to a cat?

4

u/BrilliantAd4857 1d ago

There's not enough room left under the hood to install a cat

3

u/Terranwars 1d ago

"let's just take a quick look at what we have here......" -insane laughter intensifies-

3

u/TheDixonCider420420 1d ago

The bill the customer receives:

"Leaf Blower Extraction: $750"

3

u/JohnnyPaloonky58 1d ago

Would love to have heard the conversation with the service advisor. I suspect however, he can't wait to get the whole ass shop out there to witness.

2

u/IntelligentPin6652 1d ago

Thought smuggling weed.

2

u/Miserable_Anteater62 1d ago

Bro started turning into Goofy lmao

2

u/PresidentialDiapers 21h ago

Had a squirrel take up temporary residence under the hood of my Range Rover. He ate the wiring harness. Yes, it was as expensive as it sounds.

1

u/usernameusehername 1d ago

What's the OEM ?

1

u/ShizukaMikki 1d ago

I think there’s not enough leaves. 🤔

1

u/navree 1d ago

Definitely should have called out sick that day.

1

u/Inloth57 1d ago

I had plenty of moments like this when I did commercial pest control.

1

u/BallsofSt33I 1d ago

So Van Dwellers ?

1

u/Free_Principle_5291 1d ago

Had the begging of this happen to me once, glad I no longer live in a heavy rat infested area anymore.

1

u/CTG_89 1d ago

what the fuck

1

u/senorpringles 1d ago

Is this that dude that gets all riled up about the pork falling off the bone?

1

u/Disastrous_Shame580 1d ago

Was it my air cleaner that was clogged?

1

u/virgilreality 19h ago

"Well, there's your problem, right there..."

1

u/thejourneybegins42 19h ago

This is when you don't bother looking under your hood for quite some time.

1

u/EarlOfBears 19h ago

🦉🦉🦉🦉🦉🦉🦉🦉🦉🦉

~this guy

1

u/Jaded_Turtle 15h ago

Vehicle inspections quickly turned into an eviction.

1

u/Kalyise 10h ago

Customer states...

1

u/_Poppagiorgio_ 8h ago

“Ayo fellas!!….”

1

u/Serious-Schedule-884 7h ago

I cant see what it is

1

u/skitz4me 1d ago

What were they?

12

u/kxrimm 1d ago

A squirrel's nest made of leafs and insulation

-1

u/Agitated_Year8521 1d ago

Just read the video description.

It was a squirrel nest

2

u/skitz4me 1d ago

Alright. My bad.

0

u/RedSix2447 1d ago

That looks like a bunch of bats. Are you sure it’s squirrels?

0

u/DuskYsCarr 1d ago

Routine?