Thanks for all the outstanding advice. The rat has met it's maker !!!! The same day the Rat-Zapper arrived. I went to put the zapper in the garage for the prebaiting proccess, and discovered the critter had finally found it way to one of the baitless commercial rat traps I had picked up at Lowes. It wasn't frozen and still quite floppy, so I must have just missed the kill by a few hours.
The thing managed to destroy all the new foam in the fenders, a few more wires and nearly destroyed the fan for the heater and the a/c. The fan was vibrating so bad it could be felt in the steering wheel and the gas pedal. I mentioned before the dealer qouted us 13 hours labor to replace the fan. @$99 per hour !!!! So last night I took the job on myself. I took the dash cover off to see what it would take to clean out the fan area. Not accessible from there. Decided to try access it from under bonnet, close but no. My brother finally pulled the panel under the glove box and we were home free. The criitter had made it's way through fillter completely and had taken residence bettween the fan and the filter. The filter is toast, but once it was removed we were abble to remove all the debri that was causing the fan to be out of balance. Now I have a question about the filter, was Mini going to replace it at one of our service visits ? I haven't looked up the cost yet, I am guessing at least $50. It is charcoal filled , quite large and it came from BMW, so the skys the limit I am guessing.
Anyway, thanks for all the helpfull advice. PM me if you need a good deal on a unused Rat-Zapper 2000. It's been over a week and I can't find any kin, so maybe it wasn't a Rat. Good redence, whatever it was.