Need help! Severe mouse problem in car

[silverback]

Rodents dislike spearmint/peppermint oil. The essential oils are concentrated and a few drops into your gear shift hump, or where ever they are entering, may help you out. A few drops, period. I add a few drops to my 5 speed D/R hump when I am camping. Have not had a mouse in years. Vehicle smells good.

Essential oils are available at herbal shops.

You might try playing ZZ Top and Led Zeppelin -- worked for me on a deer mouse while camping in the Mt. Baker area.

[Mdarius]

Here in Salt Lake City there is a Don Aslett cleaning store. They rent an Ozone generating machine for about $20 a day. The ozone machine replaces oxygen with Ozone, killing everything, including bacteria, wherever you place it. If you put your car in your garage and put the Ozone machine in the car for a couple hours I'm betting you'd have a bunch of dead mice. They'd rot where ever they died, so you'd have to deal with that, but rent the Ozone machine next week and do it again to kill that smell.

 

The dealership should have an Ozone machine also, but the enclosed space of your garage is going to help.

 

I don't know if it will work, but for $20 I'd try it on my car. Good luck!

[motneal]

They like to come in thru the air intake for your heater , top of the back of the engine compartment. put screen across there. They like to live in the heater core and ducting, it is not to hard to get there or the blower motor to inspect. If your car is new maybe the dealer can help. This is nothing new to Subaru. I don't know why mice like them but they really,really, really do. We had to strip the cars down to a bare shell to clean them out. They like to chew on the silicone spark plug wires. Even if you kill them they still urinated all over inside of your car and usually lived in the heater so it smells every time you turn on the heat. We removed that and presure washed them. WE even had to replace all of the felt sound deadening that is behind everything in the whole car. Bait works. I think maybe your just getting new mice. They crawl under/thru the the door rubber trim too.

[bheinen74]

The reason they eat wiring is because they are chewing ANYTHING they an make into a nest/home.

 

And I do mean Anything.

 

They chewed the little box surrounding the MAF on the on my SVX...prior to me getting the car.

[motneal]

Hose to the exhaust worked for a lot of people. Never heard of anyone doing it for mice mice. I think you are just getting new mice and the bait works. I towed home the last car I fixed and watched mice jump the whole way. Just the greatest of condos for them I guess. 3 screws takes off the blower motor under right side of dash. They get a lot further up and it gets a lot harder to get in but that has always been the best home for them. Mostly I would say bait and traps where you park your car . Good luck, Tom.

[spazomatic]

I've had lots of rodent problems. I love livin out in the sticks, but geez this gets old! freakin rodents!

after several heater plenum R&Rs, I've affixed expanded metal to the plenum intake, and that seems to help quite a bit.

 

The old school "Victor" spring traps work great. The trick: take a Reeses peanut butter chip, and super glue it to the trigger. works way way better than just peanut butter.

 

other than that, I use my spare time pickin off the mice and chipmunks with an old scoped bolt action Marlin .22.

[Meeky Moose]

when we lived in ruckersville, out in the country, we had mice issues.. cars, in the house, etc.. little bastards would run across the fireplace mantle while we were watchin a movie, or across the dash pullin out of the driveway..

 

we invested in a couple of free "barn cats" just put food out for them so they would stay close.. they would come in once in awhile too.. the smell of cats will keep the mice away.. mice know the smell of thier predator very well and stay away from it..

 

best part is $5 every couple weeks feed the Free barn cats.. and you might end up liking them eventually..

 

mice like to run off with the insulation thats on the bottom of the carpet, etc. they will make nests in it. you may have to pull the seats and carpet out and possible some of the side trim.

[rujoking]

I'm pretty lucky, where I live now the only pest issues I've got are with earwigs, and you can actually keep those guys out with a sprinkling of dried clove powder around the doors.

 

The last place though was a bit rougher. We had squirrels and chipmunks everywhere, to the point where at least one of my neighbors inadvertently roasted one on top of his V6 one morning. I didn't think I was as bad off as all that, but last month I pulled out my resonator chamber and discovered that a mouse had somehow gotten in and set up camp. The worst part was that even though he got in, he apparently never got back out again. And mice really can't go for very long without food or water.

 

Basically, what I'm saying is that the sooner you get the holes plugged, the less depressing your car will be when you have to take things apart down the line.