It's spring TV ratings sweeps, so one of the local TV stations consumer action reporters did a story (hardly original, judging by Google search hits) on the horrors of rats and other rodents feasting ...
I owned a Honda several years ago. One morning I went out to go to work and turned the key and nothing happened. I popped the hood and found pieces of hoses and wiring laying around the engine compartment. The little rodents had done about 800 dollars worth of damage overnight. We had a cat, so that wasn't the answer. I put down some rat baits in areas where the dog and cat couldn't get to them and that did the trick.