I pulled the engine from a 41 dodge coupe that had set in the barn after they had engine trouble 25 years before I got it. When I drained the oil everything looked ok, them I pulled the pan and the mice hade used cotton from the fields around the farm to build a hugh floating nest in the oil pan. The bottom was oil soaked but the top was dry. When I pulled the crank they had run the engine with the nest in there because three of the rod bearing journals were blue from heat. Rebuilt and modified the engine and drove the car to Hot August Nights and Bonneville last summer.
I had a problem with them in my garage about 15 years ago before I got better doors for it. They don't need much room to sneak in. I had a nest behind the wall of my machine shop, I could hear little ones scrabbling around behind it. A couple of glue traps (nailed to a 1 x 6) took care of the problem. I got some with Victor snap-traps too. The best trap I ever saw was a 30 gallon drum of water with a plank going from the ground to the lip of the drum. A slat of wood was mounted at the top of the drum and pivoted in the middle, It looked like a walk way, only once Mr. Rat walked onto it, to get the food at the far end, it would pivot and he'd fall into the drum, which you may opt to fill with water or not. This is something that could be made with a couple of spackle buckets spliced together to get the depth. Radius a slat of wood to match the bucket opening, mount the slat on any scrap piece of rod stock and you're good to go. Bob
The '50 Chevy I picked up was all vintage 1970 last time on the road except for the new chrome oil filler cap. So I pulled the valve cover and here it is full of a nest. No mouse corpses, but there was some chunky oil when I changed it about six times - it also was full of water - but it ran great. Motor's a '56 235. A number of years ago a guy donated a Suburban, about a '75, to a railroad historical group here. It didn't run well so I was volunteered to help figure it out. We got it so it would go, but it ran like shit for no apparent reason. Then the kid helping drove it up and down the gravel road, went over a bump, and the muffler fell off. At which point it began to run fine. Muffler was packed with a nest. My '57 Pontiac I've noticed is suddenly full of pine cones inside. Hundreds of them. I probably should patch up the hole in the front floor. Squirrels must be doing that. The 69 Olds I junked over the summer I cleaned a nest out of the glove box complete with dead mouse corpse. Maybe the best one has to be the '79 Chevy one-ton panel I bought to serve as a storage cube. The guy left a lot of just plain shit inside - some of it looked like floor sweepings from cleaning out a shop. So here's a toolbox inside.. I start to open and check it out and hear squeaks and something moving.. sure enough, full of a mouse nest. I filled trunks of two scrap cars with the junk out of that truck. I found a 5-gallon bucket with a little oil in it hung from the end of the garage door track makes a good mousetrap, too, forgot and left it with like a quart in the bottom, went to dump it into a container to recycle later and there were about half a dozen dead mice in it.
rats also carry weils desease in there urine so wear gloves and dont eat with uncleaned hands when your cleaning their crap out of your car,,it can kill ya
When i got my 48 ford, it had sat for 46 years in a barn with horse feed and hog feed around. the car had 17 rat nest in it, I counted them all. they were even under the headliner. I had to use a vacuum cleaner and a wire to get them all out. None in the engine since it was a running car when parked but i did have to take out all the interior and wash the whole thing out inside. I since put the seats back in and it doesn't smell much like rat piss now. They don't seen to bother one much that just sits outside unless people store garden seeds, some kind of feed or alot of junk in them.
Bump. Do rats go to rat school? Caught a coup;e big ones under hood with a Victor snap trap lately but the last few times they have managed to eat the peanut butter without springing the trap, they must be putting a foot under the tang or something! I also have the 5 gallon bucket with spinning can thing, it works great for mice but these rats must be big enough to stand on the edge. Perhaps a bigger bucket trap, or a peanut in the shell on the snap trap? The last one must have been two pounds.
Have a couple of those enclosed plastic oil change drain pans stacked up in a corner of the garage. One super rainy night after a week of rain my spidey sense was tingling, I wanted to check that no water was getting in. Sure enough the floor was covered. Then I looked a little closer at it. That ain't water! F&@$!! Never did check what exactly caused it, but my working theory is one of those little bastards chewed a hole in one. 5 to 10 quarts of used oil spreads amazingly far and wide.
Field mice can crawl through any crack, opening or even a tunnel of unlimited distance that their skull can fit. Their shoulders elbows, hips, knees, etc. are like toothpaste and follow right along. They actually prefer the narrowest openings possible as an edge to keep the larger predators out. I would bet that rats have similar habits. You don't want to mess with this little guy....... ..
Had a 5 gallon bucket of cooking oil for my turkey fryer a mouse ate through the top of the container, fell inside and drowned.
We get them damned rats (mice too) but since I have dogs, I hate using poison. I use a piece of 3 inch PVC over a pipe...PVC is about a foot long. Under the PVC is a old 15 gallon container 1/2 full of water. When I start noticing the little bastards around the place, I put peanut butter in the middle of the PVC(on top). Rats run don the pipe, onto the PVC, it slips and rolls a bit, rat falls into the container of water. I let'em soak till garbage day, then toss'em into the can.
Several years ago the wife had one of those Presto deep fryers she kept on the kitchen cabinet. She always kept it full of oil so she could fry taters and stuff, it had a plastic lid to keep things out, or so you would think. One night she's cooking supper, throws some french fries in it and plugs it up. The hotter it got, the more it smelled funny. She used her dipper to dip out the fries, and guess what else comes out? Yep, fried rat! Needless to say, the fries and the cooker went out the back door in a hurry! Next one she bought had a snap on metal lid so no more extra meat in our taters!
We are down to three cats at present, but put food out for all the strays in the neighborhood. We also have a Basset Hound who catches them. I still have a couple of 5 gallon buckets with antifreeze in them, but haven't caught a mouse in one for several years now.
They can swim, but they can't jump out of the bucket with the water in it. So they just tire out and drowned.
I've used several peppermint oil soaked cotton pads, strategically placed around the motor home when it goes into storage. Seems to work pretty well. I can't stand the smell of peppermint either!
Have a bunch of Feral cats around, they appeared a couple years ago..My wife started feeding them and as a reward they stick around and take care of the varmints..Now a days instead of seeing a whole bunch of varmints frolicking around the yard I only see one here or there...Oh, and the Ferals do leave some presents for the wife!
I had one that had laid 3 of those side by side on my front porch.... Pretty smart for an 8 month old kitten..... Then some asshole down the street ran him over....
Last night I filled the 5 gallon bucket trap half full of water and put just a dab of peanut butter on top side of the can. This morning the bucket it still empty but the peanut butter is on the bottom, untouched. Going to build a bigger one today. There used to be a cat that came around but my neighborhood has been on a big 'keep you cat in at night' kick, don't see it anymore. Don't miss the cat prints on the cars though..
One gallon of cheap Anti Freeze, 2 1/2- 3 gallons of water, a jar of Wal Mart peanut butter, I keep the Skippy for my self, an old Peanut can, a piece of bailing wire and a 6 gallon bucket. We live on 2 1/2 acers surrounded on three sides by 8 Million acers of corn and soy beans, this combo of peanut butter and anti freeze snuffed out 32 of the little Bastards this winter, Mice not Rats, haven't seen any Rats. Works good for me!!
That's exactly like mine. I have them at my cabin property and they do catch mice like gangbusters. Just empty them out every week or two. But the rats at my home driveway are much much larger, can probably span the bucket. I have a 30 gallon can I'm going to try.
The Jalopy Journal
