Of Mice and Cars

[mal paso]

Anybody ever find a mouse in their car? More specifically, a live mouse?


I was driving my girlfriend to work this morning when I spotted him(or her) in the back seat. I pulled over and opened all the doors and the hatchback to try and coax him out, but I don't know if it worked. Any suggestions?


I keep my car very clean, so I was quite surprised. Is this a common hazard of living in the middle of nowhere?

[Brad Pittiful]

get some peppermint oil and put it in your car with the doors open...mice dont like peppermint oil...it may vamoose if you do that...unless it is using your car as a nursery

[mal paso]

Tell me the nursery thing is not possible! Wouldn't I have found something, if there were more than one?

Oh, and thanks for the tip btw.

[Guitarzan]

Mothballs and dryer sheets work to some degree as well. Mice getting into boats that are parked a while is a big problem.

[Post Toastie]

Just play some Nickelback music in the car, usually takes about 30 seconds.John Mayer music takes a little longer.

[telleutelleme]

Better than snakes on a plane.

[muchxs]

'Bout ten years back I drove a '74 VW Bug. I tend to keep two spare tires in the car. It's an old desert racer thing. Kept one in the spare tire well in the nose of the car, the other one laid flat on top of the gas tank. I parked it for a couple weeks, found a big ol' pile of grey fluff in the middle of the horizontal spare tire. Headliner padding "borrowed" by some rodent. Nice crop o' twitchy pink rat babies in the middle of the fuzz.

I left the car parked for another couple weeks. Rode my motorcycle instead. Rodents grow quick. If they want to come along for the ride after that it's up to them.

Yet another "Rat Rod" story.

Originally Posted by telleutelleme

Better than snakes on a plane.

I got big fat snakes, too. Sometimes I have to wait for them to get outta the way when I mow my lawn.

Maybe they ate the rat babies?!

[dented]

You might get him out, but how do you keep him from going back in? Exterminate the little fur ball.

Three weeks ago a girl at work was driving down a freeway in her new Yukon. A rat came out of a vent on one side of the hood, walked across the hood and disappeared into another vent........at 65mph. She parked the car outside not wanting to put it into her garage. In the morning it wouldn't start. Towed to the dealer......wire harnessing replaced. A regular occurence in this county. Fruit rats get into everything, under the hood of the cars and eat their away around the engine.

[burtwangcaster]

A good old spring trap gets it done in two days. Peanut butter is the prefered 'Last Meal' for the condemed. Honda or Toyota ? Service tech told me they use soy beans to make the wire insulation ! I love Green Technology. Look in cabin filter....

[fuzzbender]

If it's the same one, he's known as Mickey the Car Taker

caught on a speed camera once


now you know why they're called hatchbacks

[mal paso]

Hey Fuzz! Long time no read!


Thanks everybody. I'm currently trying the peppermint oil cottonball trick.


Hopefully that works, I'm not in a killing mood

[fuzzbender]

Hmm, long time me no read

Try and get a grant from the PETrol Conservation fund

[stnmtthw]

Out here, it's not uncommon for snakes to crawl up in the engine compartment of a vehicle that's recently been turned off, especially in the fall, when the weather starts getting colder. I worked on a ranch when I was a teenager, and the foreman told me a story about searching for the source of a bad smell in his truck. When he popped the hood, he said a rattlesnake was wrapped around the cooling fan, all hacked up. (Disclaimer: that guy was as full of ******* as a Christmas turkey. But I have found snakes in the engine compartments of a couple old vehicles I was working on. Never rattlesnakes, though.)

[mal paso]

Hey Stnmtt, remind me to ride my bike next time I come and visit

[fuzzbender]

yeah, heard a long time ago, it was common in India for snakes to wrap themselves around axles or something

lucky you didn't buy a Cobra

[dan1952]

A few years ago the field mice decided to establish a village in my old Dodge pickup. Ate some wiring, lived in the vents and in the engine compartment, ran 'em off with moth balls. Tons of Windex, Fabreeze, etc., later, truck looked and smelled clean again. Ahhh, the joys of country living...

[Slydeco]

Had one in my jeep "Burtwangcaster has the cure

[Jack FFR1846]

I got one better. We have a truck we use for plowing and for family vacations and for a while, it sat in the garage with the sunroof open. It probably sat for 2 or 3 months before it was time to load in the family and do some kind of thing that required enough seats in it to keep the kids from killing each other.

My older son and I decide to clean out the inside first. I open the door and it stinksssss. I find a cup that I thought was some tea my wife must have left.....but it's a big McDonalds kinda gianormous cup. Not a tea bag. A mouse who got in, couldn't get out and drowned in there.

A year later, I can still smell it a bit.

I close the sunroof now and drive it with the windows down a lot.

[Post Toastie]

Originally Posted by Jack FFR1846

I got one better. We have a truck we use for plowing and for family vacations and for a while, it sat in the garage with the sunroof open. It probably sat for 2 or 3 months before it was time to load in the family and do some kind of thing that required enough seats in it to keep the kids from killing each other.

My older son and I decide to clean out the inside first. I open the door and it stinksssss. I find a cup that I thought was some tea my wife must have left.....but it's a big McDonalds kinda gianormous cup. Not a tea bag. A mouse who got in, couldn't get out and drowned in there.

A year later, I can still smell it a bit.

I close the sunroof now and drive it with the windows down a lot.

Burn some popcorn and put it in the truck for about an hour. Burnt popcorn smells better than a dead mouse.

[dman]

Originally Posted by Post Toastie

Burn some popcorn and put it in the truck for about an hour. Burnt popcorn smells better than a dead mouse.

Or burn some coffee grounds in a pan and do the same. Old cop trick...used when you have to go into a house where the neighbors haven't seen the elderly owner for two weeks and finally decide to call 911.

I took my wife's Jeep Liberty in to our mechanic for servicing this spring. He saved the immense nest of chewed-up paper, cardboard, string and leaves that he found in the air cleaner box. No wonder it was running like crap. We now have a nice sachet of moth balls in there.