This right here is the key to the dryer sheet method. DOWNY brand is what a bazillion camping folks use to winter their units. Liberal amounts, it's pretty cheap insurance. I've had good results with it, both cars and campers. Gotta be DOWNY though... to work.
This might help next winter. I worked many years at a Ford dealership and people would come in with their blower motor noisy. Mice would take insulation or even the under the hood stuff into the squirrel cage and get it unbalanced. Clean it out( Dogfood too) after removing it would take care of the problem. As 53hattie said take away their food source. I had a problem with them years ago and they were eating dog food. I put the dogfood in a truckbed tool box on the carport and they stayed outside. If I eat in my truck and make a mess, they will come in it looking for food. I use glue traps with a piece of dogfood in it.
Well, this thread is back and we still got rats! RE the rat guards mentioned above, you better have your car up high, cause the little stinkers can jump pretty high. Some time back I got some squirrel "killer" - it looked exactly like peanut brittle but contained a poison that damaged their liver in about a week. I was very surprised to see they sold poison that looked and smelled like food. I tossed some of it up on the roof. It worked fine, and the little mongrels even curled up and died in the gutters for easy collection. But I don't have kids or even a dog back then. The neighbors might not appreciate a cat killer in the area, either. Gary
i noticed a small hole in my headliner this spring. and a slite smell. so i took the headliner out and found. three handfulls of decon. a gallon of dog food and a shit load of pistacios. i will be trying the pans over jackstands this winter. DEEP DISH PIZZA PANS !!! SORRY I CANT SPELL....W.A.F
a bull snake will take care of the mice, but I hate snakes so I'm trying spearmint extract in pop bottle caps placed in the car, don't know if it works yet will find out in a couple weeks. Tried the moth ball trick in my combine and tractors, but the smell of moth balls was just as bad as mouse piss. spearmint extract worked for the combine and tractors so should work for the cars.
old fashion mouse traps&peanut butter.even in todays high tech wold no one has build a (BETTER MOUSE TRAP)
Rats can jump 3 ft straight out and if they are hell bent on entering your car they will. Your best bet is to install a dozen snap traps and use peanut butter on them and kill them off untill you dont have anymore. Dont use Dyer sheets please, they dont really work. I own a pest control company and if dryer sheets worked I would use them to save money over expensive rodenticides. Also dont keep gum,mints fast food wrappers in a stored vehicle, Rats and mice can smell it and will want infest it. Good luck.
The only way to stop them is steel fence....18" high... all the way around the car. Any good lumber yard will have 50' rolls of coil stock, roll it out , set on edge, and secure the ends together. Mice can't climb or jump over it. They can pole vault over it so use few traps around the outside.....
i have a BIG fat black cat named Littleguy, Ill loan him to you!!! He loves mice, the only thing is he plays with his food! Pete-
I like the pie pans or pizza pans on jack stands idea, would also surround the jack stands with glue traps.
Earplugs, extension cord, small boombox. Yoko Ono's 1971 Fly double cd. Repeat button, volume LOW. Works on beatles, too.
This is gonna sound weird but I've used Crushed and Dried Peppermint leaves to keep mice out of my A coupe The last 2 years I've kept my car in my buddies barn. Its worked great! They sell it at health food stores, Its cheap, just put it in butter dishs one in the car one under the hood one in the trunk. I guess mice dont like the smell. Dryer sheets dont work,mice use them for nests. Just an idea for you ,I you dont want to empty buckets full of anti-freeze and expired mice.
Dryer sheets, electronic traps, sonic deterrents, do not work. Snap traps are iffy - kinda Russian roulette for mice. Chocolate works better than peanut butter. I use glue traps at entry points to the building i cannot close up and soft copper mesh such as copper scouring pads to fill holes. Mice cannot chew through it and it tears up their gums so they stop. A BIG BEWARE of droppings - never sweep, vacuum or blow as the hantavirus spores become airborne and this is one bad news mofo virus. I have had Hantavirus five times - the last time three weeks ago before i finally figured it out. Light headed/spacey echoey, blinding headache, back ache (kidneys) flu like achey symptoms, then you get the fever - burning up and shivering - typically 103-104˚F. Then it attacks the urinary track - pissing razorblades for two or three days. And if that was not enough it then goes to the lungs and can kill you. 50% of people whose lungs are affected die from it. My useless quack just ignored it - repeatedly and told me to take two aspirin. I got lucky five times and shit scared when I read about it here.... www.hantavirus.net/info2.html
Here's my trap. I once caught 5 mice in one day. A plastic bucket, a soda can with peanut butter smeared on it and a piece of wood as a ramp to allow the vermin to climb up to the top. They crawl across the rod, jump on the can and do a swan dive into the pool
Yikes! Hantavirus can take you out. More than a few New Mexicans lost their lives a few years ago from it. Dried/ airborne deer mouse droppings were the cause. I'm glad you are OK.
Man that sounds like the Roach Motel from back in the day. " They check in but they can't check out". You Sir may have built a better Mouse Trap. Godspeed MrC.
I feed the little bastards. Oatmeal with a little brown shugar. They love it. I sneak a little plaster-o-paris in the snack and so far I dont have any repeat customers. I picked up some shallow dishes at a thrift store and serve them in style.
The electronic noise machines work, have used them for over 30 years, I have never found a mouse in all the locations I have used them in. Home depot not expensive
I just hauled what had been a hell of a nice heavy duty tarp to the dump because mice had eaten about 100 holes in it when I had it covering a pile of lumber. Maybe putting the car up on tall jack stands with tin pie pans upside down on or around the jack stand so the rodents can't get past them. I'd just like to keep the little bastards out of my house. I caught 10 with one trap in a week's time.
I have found that the best mouse deterent is a 10 gauge with bird shot. A 410 will also work but you have to walk out to the garage to use it and with the goose gun you can get 'em from the front porch.