mouse deterrent, winter storage

[Hawklover]

I had to weigh in to this discussion.........my daily driver is a Mercury Grand Marquis........and is generally parked on the mean streets of the City of New York.
Somehow, and I still have not figured out how, a small rat managed to gain entrance to my trunk!.........how did I find out?.........I opened tHe trunk lid and saw something move in the corner of my eye...........a sick feeling enveloped me as I had that gut feeling that a rodent had gained access!
I stripped the trunk and found nothing.........then put everything back.......a few days later opened the trunk again and this time saw the bugger move to the back of the trunk.
I then stripped the trunk clean, went to the store and purchased Deacon and large glue traps.

I then checked every day ...........nothing..........I feared the beast would get into the interior of the car and start to feast on the wires under the dash and everything else. After one week, still nothing.........I figured he was hiding in to the q-panel inner area which the factory used to run wires through........I then took out all the Deacon and placed more glue boards up in the spare tire area.
Two days later I popped the trunk lid, and low and behold there he was his feet stuck to the glue............I had some plastic freezer liners in the trunk which I used to slip under the trap, and walked Mr. Rat over to the nearest NYC trash can.........yes, it bothered me to see him on that glue trap, but I had to do what I had to do.
I still wonder how in the world a baby rat managed to gain entrance to my trunk....in NYC no less. BTW, the car was parked close to the Hudson River, but no way that rat walked two NYC blocks and gained entrance.

Moral of story............I always peek in the trunk as I open the lid:-)

[rkapteyn]

I found that pouring some ammonia around the garage keeps many pests out.
You have to renew is often.

[53k]

I've been using moth balls in a can on the floor and they just plane work. The smell goes away in a week or so of driving use in the summer. Mouse piss smell seems to be forever. They also like headliners and that replacement is expensive.
Nice to clarify dryer sheets are not effective. I've been thinking about trying them; I'm glad I didn't.

I have been using mothballs ever since I found a very visible hole in my extremely rare, unobtainium NOS '53 C/K trunk mat along with a nest made of the box of Kleenex tissues that go in my under-dash dispenser. I place one small, open container of mothballs in the trunk and one in the passenger compartment- no mouse damage since.
I also use black rat snakes as guards, but not on purpose. One day I went to check something in my stock record cards. When I opened the drawer I found three mice huddled together in the drawer right in the middle of the cards. They didn't move. On a hunch I opened the doors to the bottom of the cabinet and there was a black rat snake. I closed the doors, left for five minutes then came back. No mice and no black rat snake. I NEVER have harmed a black rat snake and don't plan to.

[Bish]

I've used dryer sheets forever. No mice ever. I use the cheapest I can find. I started using them after my sister was told it worked by a Chicago exterminator.

[55s]

Here's what I was told: Apparently mothballs, dryer sheets and ammonia work because animals are unable to smell enemies approaching when there is a strong overbearing scent, and they don't like not being able to smell predators approaching.

[Studerick64]

I have found that Irish Spring soap works very well to repel rodents. I set some bars in the car, in the tail pipes and in the engine compartment. I don't care for the odor but it works well.

[hausdok]

I've been inspecting homes for nearly 20 years and can't even remember how many thousands of dryer ducts I've found broken or disconnected in crawlspaces and found those crawlspaces full of nicely scented lint, much of which I'm sure is Bounce as well as others. It doesn't seem to deter rodents at all. They love the stuff.

Snap traps will get one or two rodents and then the rest will learn to avoid the snap trap. Glue traps are pretty effective at getting a lot very quickly. The first one gets stuck and the rest get curious and come along to try and help and themselves get stuck. The problem with a glue trap is if it gets flipped over and touches the carpet you'll play hell detaching it from the carpet and then getting the sticky goop out of the carpet. I once sat on one in a crawlspace by accident and by the time I got done unsticking myself my coveralls, and my gloves, were essentially ruined. I threw them away.

I think mothballs might work pretty well but not under the hood of a car.

Make a nice bed for your cat, put it under the hood and train the cat to sleep there. Cats don't chew on wires and such. Rodent problem solved.

[lark55]

We had a running battle with mice over the years when I was working. Whenever I discovered one in a test cell or building I always left traps out after the first one was caught. Usually there was more than just the one mouse. They also had a tendency to attract various sizes of rattlesnakes looking for a meal. I know that it may not be practical for a car, but we always cleaned up the droppings with a mixture of water and bleach to take care of the possibility of hantavirus.

[oldguy51]

I have heard the Bay Leaves and Cloves work inside car and moth balls around the outside and in the engine compartment work.
Oldguy

[RSykes]

Spearmint is a deterrent. I bought some at my local ACE hardware store last winter. No mice. I put them under the seat so they won't use the seat material as insulation for their nests.

[BobPalma]

Here's a new item Ted Harbit's wife put me onto this week: Moth Ball Packets so you don't have loose moth balls with which to contend.

They don't have much odor, either. Per Mary Ann's advice, I found them at Meijer's:



I'll be throwing them around the various compartments of my cars in preparation for winter storage. BP

[CJMiller]

They don't have much odor, either. Per Mary Ann's advice, I found them at Meijer's:

Isn't the odor the whole point though? For all we know mice go insane for the scent of lavender, maybe you'll have every mouse in the neighborhood desperately chewing their way into your garage.

25 years ago I filled the attic of a summer cabin with mothballs to get rid of bats. Didn't bother the bats a bit, but when I unlock the place for the summer and walk in the front door, the smell of mothballs still hits you.

I always heard that you set out snap traps, kill a few, and then leave the dead bodies (or even just the traps with the scent still on them), because the scent of dead mouse serves as a warning to others and they avoid the area.

[gordr]

I don't think there is much risk of poisoning a cat with mouse poison. I was concerned about that a few years ago, and contacted one of the mouse poison manufacturers. Their statement was that a cat would have to eat more poisoned mice than its belly could hold to get a lethal dose, and the poison is less effective on cats (on a per-weight basis) than it is on rodents. And cats won't likely eat an already-dead mouse; they like to kill their prey.

By the way, one of the best baits you can use for snap traps is raisins. Mice love them, and they are tough enough that you can really wedge them tightly into the trigger of the trap, so the little bastards can't tease them loose, or lick it away like they do peanut butter. I got 3 mice off one raisin one evening.

[ddub]

I usually start my trap line about the end of Oct. This year I got an early star in August and caught 8 or 10 while the weather was still good, none recently. I think I have a new strategy.

[Carl Purdy]

The best way is to plug up all the holes. I had left a Tootsie Roll Pop in my truck and they chewed it to pieces. I finally found the hole they were getting in to and plugged it up. And put Irish Spring under the hood.