Damage done by squirrels

I use .22 shorts because they're not much louder than a pellet rifle. But I also keep a small tin of mothballs in various places in & around the motor home.
They cost me $500 on my class c about 7 years ago.

Where we live its the desert mouse. They like the color/taste of certain colors. Peppermint oil works with some, not others, Cat or a dog. Traps and Move the unit.

been tods they don,t like fox urine, I use peppermint oil works for mice but some one said put a can of amonia under the hood.

This is a big problem most anywhere. Apparently the covering on most of the wires in vehicles are made out of something that rodents and small animals really love to eat. So mice, rats, rabbits, squirrels, and most any small critter like that can get in there and cost a lot of damage. Back before I retired we had a bunch of brand new police cars that they stored at the City Corp Yard for a few months while waiting to be put into service. During that time rabbits got into all of them and did several thousand dollars damage to each car.

Had them damage the wiring in my previous truck four times to the tune of about $400 each time. Finally found Critter Ridder containing a hot pepper extract at Home Depot. Sprayed all my wiring and no more problem. They never bothered my wife's car or my daughter's car.

Read recently that some wiring insulation was made with a mix of soy because it was cheaper to produce, and that is attractive to rodents.

Way back when, because of some imagined energy crisis, it was determined that the best thing to do was to switch from petroleum based insulation material to a soy based product. The consequences is that they have found out that rodents and several other animals like to eat soy based products, which includes vehicle and residential wiring. .
I use Fox urine spray and also set up squirrel traps with peanut butter as bait. The wife makes me haul them several miles away and let them loose instead of me just throwing them in the lake that we live on and let the alligators take care of them.

I relocate them to a lake about 3 miles away. (Its too far for them to walk home!) Peanut butter, suet, or rabbit food draws them into my Havahart trap.

Luckily I'm out in the country where the sound of gun fire is not an issue. I don't give the little buggers a chance, I use my 12 ga. with #6 shot. Splats them all over the front yard as they try to run across.

None of the electronic gismo's work that you read about?

There are predator scents that will work. Fox, coyote. Just google it. Not that expensive. You can get the powdered form and put it in a nylon bag to last longer.