This does come up every year.......
Rodents go where the munchies are. Remove the food source, and they
will leave. Period.
Rat bait is counter productive. It may kill them, but still attracts
them, which you don't want.
Boats are attractive to rodents. They don't have to have that
forgotten open can of sardines in the locker. The smell of past
cooking from the galley, or the portapotty locker is more than enough
to tell them "there is food here". Wipe down the boats interior with
alcohol, bleach, etc. Remove every last crumb from that breakfast
muffin the owner dropped last year.
Remve the source, and the *suggestion* of source, and the rodents will
pack up and go somewhere else.
That;s all there is to it.
JR

On Sat, 13 Sep 2008 09:06:42 -0500, Dave Brown
wrote:

No doubt this has been discussed before, but let's see if we can get a
little more boat action going in here and see what may be new on this topic.

I received an e-mail this morning from someone asking how to deter
rodents from nesting in their boat over the winter. The winter of
2006/2007 was a particularly bad year in our region and yet last winter,
we didn't have a single occurrence in any of the 200+ boats we store.

There are common remedies like dryer sheets and moth balls, but I have
seen infestations with both of these used. Plus, the smell never goes
away for either (not to mention the health effect the moth balls can
have on humans).

Last year I went with rodent baits hoping that if they were going to get
in, they'd at least be killed before the upholstery was trashed and
carpet urine soaked. Of course, having one of the little buggers die
inside an inaccessible panel wouldn't be pleasant either.

Thoughts? Ideas?