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Anyone have a good deterrent for mice getting into vehicles? We recently moved to a rural property where we sit in the middle of 250 acres of farmland and woodlands. We don't have a garage so the vehicles sit parked on a gravel driveway. We do have two barn cats that have free range of the property, but obviously there is no shortage of field mice and other small rodents. For some reason mice seem to love my wife's mini-van. I've trapped two (placing a trap overnight with peanut butter usually proves irresistible) in the past month and we just found a third that I'll have to take care of tonight. For the life of me I can't figure out how the heck they're getting in-especially in this cold weather as it's not as though we leave the doors hanging open. Just curious how others have dealt with this issue. I will say that I've never had a mouse in my vehicle-not sure what it is about hers. Maybe the ventilation system is somehow more accessible to them?
Anyone have a good deterrent for mice getting into vehicles? We recently moved to a rural property where we sit in the middle of 250 acres of farmland and woodlands. We don't have a garage so the vehicles sit parked on a gravel driveway. We do have two barn cats that have free range of the property, but obviously there is no shortage of field mice and other small rodents. For some reason mice seem to love my wife's mini-van. I've trapped two (placing a trap overnight with peanut butter usually proves irresistible) in the past month and we just found a third that I'll have to take care of tonight. For the life of me I can't figure out how the heck they're getting in-especially in this cold weather as it's not as though we leave the doors hanging open. Just curious how others have dealt with this issue. I will say that I've never had a mouse in my vehicle-not sure what it is about hers. Maybe the ventilation system is somehow more accessible to them?
I park my tractor in an open bay of my barn, I found a mouse nest in the dashboard, cleaned it out, and placed
A bait station with Tomcat rat and mouse on the platform I’ve notice some bait missing, I keep an eye on it,
and refill as needed.
Anyone have a good deterrent for mice getting into vehicles? We recently moved to a rural property where we sit in the middle of 250 acres of farmland and woodlands. We don't have a garage so the vehicles sit parked on a gravel driveway. We do have two barn cats that have free range of the property, but obviously there is no shortage of field mice and other small rodents. For some reason mice seem to love my wife's mini-van. I've trapped two (placing a trap overnight with peanut butter usually proves irresistible) in the past month and we just found a third that I'll have to take care of tonight. For the life of me I can't figure out how the heck they're getting in-especially in this cold weather as it's not as though we leave the doors hanging open. Just curious how others have dealt with this issue. I will say that I've never had a mouse in my vehicle-not sure what it is about hers. Maybe the ventilation system is somehow more accessible to them?
I park my tractor in an open bay of my barn, I found a mouse nest in the dashboard, cleaned it out, and placed
A bait station with Tomcat rat and mouse on the platform I’ve notice some bait missing, I keep an eye on it,
and refill as needed.
Yeah - We have had mice make a nest in the heater box of our truck.
Nothing like turning on the heater and getting mouse-nest-bedding blown into our faces. ;-/
The ~second~ time we had to pay someone to take the whole dash apart and clean out the heater box, we fashioned a wire screen around the openings so they couldn't get in it any more. - So far so good -
Black pepper. Cayenne pepper. except that it's winter so spreading it on the snow it pretty pointless. But, at least, spread it all over engine.
Reason they like engines is twofold.
1. naturally, warmth and plenty of secluded "safe" places to nest.
2. butane rubber. For some reason, rodents consider it to be tasty condiment and eat it. As the result, engine will eventually have chewed wires in various places and malfunction. Cost me $350 to fix harness on my truck because of this once. Also, keep in mind that rodents eat on certain tires for same reason. Some additive in tires attracts them like peanut butter.
I can't say I've ever found a mouse in one of our vehicles but we have had squirrels and chipmunks try to nest in. Had a chipmunk nest right on top of the air filter (made with the hood liner) in a brand new vehicle I hadn't had 2 wks. Ugh.
But.. have had squirrels chew thru the wiring harness on 2 vehicles. They like to sharpen their teeth on wires and metal... but that gets expensive.
Be sure to look under the hood every few days...especially if the car isn't driven often. They loved the big engine cover of one recent car....it came complete with perfect nesting material glued to the hood just above them.
Mothballs may help but fabric softener sheets like "Bounce" may work and smell better. The poison packets are also good and should be checked and replaced as needed.
I had to zip tie snap traps near the air cleaner inlet, on the front sub frame/cradle, and flat dry places under the hood - It was the only way to put a dent in the problem, and I killed a bunch. Got down to a routine of checking them every day or so, with a lot of multiple kills.
I used to service vehicles for a living, and it always amazed me what, and how much crap mice could stuff into a vehicle... Pounds of dog food, huge amounts of pink insulation, dry grass, tons of droppings and stinky urine stains, plus chewing holes into the air filter. Ironic, but one of their favorite places to load up to the point of failure, was the squirrel cage fan under the dash.
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