Rats or Cats Update

I had a conversation this morning with friends about the rats and cats situation here on base. My friends' neighbor had been ill for a couple of days and hadn't left her house, thus she hadn't started her vehicle. It seems rats chewed through the hoses in her car, rendering it inoperable, just like what happened to our neighbor's truck during his vacation. And the real kicker here is that this woman owns a cat! Evidently her cat doesn't enjoy rat cuisine, or perhaps the rats are so big and vicious that they're scaring the cats, thus the reason we find them, and/or the footprints they leave behind, on top of our vehicles. Or perhaps the cats and rats have become friends, a thought that has crossed my mind, especially after seeing this...

Further evidence...

I understand housing personnel are telling folks they need to at least start their vehicles daily, even if they don't drive them anywhere, just to ward off these pesky critters. I suggest people stop feeding their cats and they'll learn to love rat cuisine and actually do their jobs! And if they're going to hang around my house and leave their paw prints and scratches on my car, they could at least get rid of the dadgum rats! Okay, all you cat lovers out there... don't get your panties in a bunch. I'm only kidding... well, sort of.

Animals can be trained to do all kinds of things, right? Why can't we train all of these feral cats to take care of the rats around here?

This is what we have now... a bunch of losers, willing to just give it all up...
Here's my question... What do we do when we're going to be away from home for an extended period of time? We'll either be driving a vehicle or leaving it at the airport, but what about our other vehicle? What do we do with it? Leave it to be destroyed by the rats?

I actually googled "rats under hood of car" and I was amazed at the number of internet postings about this problem. Apparently rats roosting under the hoods of cars and causing major damage is quite a common occurrence. I was not aware of that. (See? A person can learn something new every day if he's open to it.) A few suggestions for getting rid of rats included...

1) RAT POISON (But then they could die inside your car motor and that could be a big mess),

2) MOTH BALLS (Some say those don't work and imagine the smell inside your vehicle!),

3) SONIC PEST DETERRENT DEVICES (Rats evidently hate the noise),

4) LEMON JUICE AND/OR PEEL (Things that make you go, "Hmmm..."),

5) CLOTH SATURATED with FOX or BOBCAT URINE (Um... WHAT?! And where would I obtain fox or bobcat urine anyway?)

and my personal favorite...

6) an M-16 (Probably not allowed in base housing... In fact, I'm SURE of it!)