After reading a few of the posts on here and getting ready to store my A Model in a buddys barn for the winter. What can I put in the car to keep rats, mice,and other critters out of it. I'm going to plug up the header and seal the motor, but what can I do to keep them out of the inside of the car. The wiring and seats are my main concern. A friend said to use mothballs, but I would like to hear what you guys think...
Mothballs work great for me but it took a couple tries to find the right ones. I can't remember right now which ones worked but they are in a blue box. Put them all over the car inside and in the trunk and on the floor of the garage and you shouldn't have any trouble.Just thought of it , they are called Enose or Enoz.
mothballs are highly poisonous to humans as well as animals. You may make yourself sick using them. Try dryer sheets, really... read this thread to see what happens... http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=224241 scary shit... .
The moth balls(enzos?) work good. I put them in little bags made from my wifes old panty hose and hang them all over. I found that just tossing them on the floor takes longer to get the smell out come spring.
To keep it pristine, California Car Covers sells a long term storage capsule. It even has a fan to circulate the air and packets to absorb moisture.
<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/YW2z8mewwGQ&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/YW2z8mewwGQ&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
Don't laugh,....... But a friend of mine puts 4 bars of Irish Spring soap in his car during the winter and he never has a Mouse, Rat or Critter problem,..... I tried it last year and it seemed to work for me as well.
here in arizona we dont have that problem the rattlesnakes and bullsnakes among others take care of it for us!!!!!!!!!!
Try mothballs, or go to a local pet shop selling snakes and ask to take some of their snake shit away and sprinkle it around your car the mice and rats wont go anywhere near it.
the brand BOUNCE dryer sheets we put em in cars at the garage at work all the tiem to descurage wire eatign and hoem building
Also put some traps around the garage, that'll tell you how much activity you have in general. And cut down on the population in the process. Bob
Rats are a real deal. I bought a 1928 A Bone this summer and the gas tank had lost a cap. It was full to the top and I mean the top with hair shit and other crap that a rat had drug in. It stunk so bad I could not stand it. I had to cut it open from the bottom to get it all out. I must have tried to flush it about ten times with bleach, soap and what have you. Finally I was heating a hinge to get it off and it smelled foul. The spotted little rodent had crawled up between the A piller and its garnish and died only to be a BB Que from the torch Who syas rat rods are not real?
Once more for the record. mothballs are highly poisonous, if you have kids, pets, or family that you care about there are other alternatives.
A cat, bigger the better. Mountain lion would be good. Only if you don't feed them they become really stiff and smelly after a while...... Seriously, you can buy 'blocks' of mothball in plastic covers that have small holes to let the smell out. Takes away the danger of handling them and then you don't have the issue of sitting them on the cars interior. I would use that and the dryer sheets, still a bit dubious about that one but shit! If it works why the hell not! I just hope your rats are not the type that say, hold my beer and watch this....... On a WAY O/T subject, I know a psychiatrist that jumps at my DZ, we were talking a while ago and the told me that he adamantly believes my last words will be, 'Hey, watch what I can do' I'm not real sure if thats a good or bad thing.......... Doc.
Not really going to be helpful for winter storage, but at an upholstery class that I took they taught us to put wire mesh down on your seat frames before the batting, basically as a replacement for the burlap that the factory would put there. The wire mesh keeps rodents from chewing on the soft batting in the seat and making nests there. Just a thought since we're on the subject.
I put some Dcon or something like that in the shop...all it did was kill a few and stink up the place. Then I found some rats and after working in the shop for a while, had to damn near kick their asses to get them to move out. They turned around and looked at me like "WTF". I think they got revenge by pissing and shitting all over my stuff. Damn, now I have to clean that crap up. You could aways move south for the winter.
Until I got better doors on my garage, I had both rats and mice. Now my doors fit well and nothing big enough to trip my motion detector in the alarm system has come by. Maybe a mouse or two waltz through once in a while. They need virtually only a 1/4" slit to be able to squeeze through. But setting traps will keep the bulk of the rat popluation down. I used those big glue traps that I nailed to pieces of scrap wood, so they won't walk away with them. The Victor snap traps are very lethal, you just need to set out a big enough number of them and remember where you put them. The raw poisons only make them sick enough so they crawl into somewhere cozy like your car interior or behind a wall where they croak and stink to high heaven. Bob
yeah except the packrats... I cleaned out an entire glad bag full of cactus and whatever else from a dang packrat!