Squirreled Away: Couple Finds Over 200 Walnuts Stashed Under the Hood of Their Car

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Ever seen squirrels running around the yard in fall and wondered where they are stowing all their precious foodstuffs for winter? Well, one couple from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, found out the hard way when smoke started coming out from under the hood of their 2016 Kia Sorrento.

When Sarah Persic pulled her car over to the side of the road one rainy day in early October 2019, she had no idea what awaited her under the hood of her car. She had called her husband to tell him about the smoke and mentioned, “My car’s making a funny noise now, too,” per Inside Edition.

Chris Persic told her to look inside the engine and see what was going on. In return, he received a picture of her car’s motor completely covered in thick mounds of grass and hundreds of black walnuts. The only possible culprits for such mayhem? Squirrels. As Chris Persic warned people on Facebook, “Rodents and vehicles do not mix.”

The Persics have been dealing with both walnuts and squirrels for a long time, but this is the first instance of them having to contend with both at the same time. Since moving into the house, the couple have been irritated by the amounts of nuts that the large tree showers on their house and driveway in the fall and have thought about getting rid of it.

With the birth of their first child, they started using the garage to store extra stuff, and as a result of parking in the driveway, Chris Persic told Inside Edition, “My car had dents in the hood.” Persic told KDKA in Pittsburgh that he had observed something strange. “Funny thing is I was thinking that for how massive the tree is, and how many walnuts have fallen—and how many dents our vehicle received—there really aren’t many on the ground.”

When the work of the squirrels in the wife’s car was finally revealed, the Persics were pretty impressed by the amount these determined rodents had managed to hide away for winter. In addition to everything that Chris Persic got out himself, when they took the car in to the shop, the mechanics cleared out another half a trash can’s worth of debris.

Equally amazing was how quickly the squirrels had put together their winter cache. “The walnuts only started to fall a couple of weeks ago,” Chris explained to The Dodo. “And my wife had her vehicle inspected last month.” Despite the smell of toasting walnuts that Holly Persic worried about something burning in the engine, the car ran just fine after being cleaned out.

The family’s mechanic, Mike Tevis of Tevis Auto Service, said this was the “craziest thing” he and his employees had ever seen. “They were lucky that all that dried grass didn’t catch fire,” said Tevis. “There was not much damage done to the vehicle but it could have been a lot worse.”

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Chris Persic’s car wasn’t so lucky. The very same day that his wife pulled over only to discover all the fall debris under her car’s hood, his had to be towed to the dealership for repairs. His truck had begun to shake while accelerating, and the check-engine light had come on. “Turns out my truck may have had a squirrel chew through or pull the fuel injector hose out,” he told KDKA.

Even after Holly Persic had the engine compartment of her car completely cleaned out, the squirrels weren’t done. The next day, Chris Persic checked again just to be sure and found a few new walnuts stashed away. “They were back to work,” he told USA Today. The couple is starting to feel slightly traumatized by the squirrels but will have to live with them.

“The amount of squirrels we have is unreal,” Chris Persic told Inside Edition. “Literally, you can hear them when you go outside. They make really distinct noises. It’s really loud.” Unfortunately, the walnut tree won’t be so lucky, as Holly Persic is determined to do something about the situation. “We’re definitely cleaning out the garage,” Holly said. “We’re looking into getting the tree removed. The walnuts make a pretty big mess.”