Mice and rat deterrent

Joined
Dec 19, 2012
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363
Location
Carolinas
There are a few "effective" ways of making your car mice and rat proof. I've seen using slices of Irish Spring, mothballs, cinnamon, etc...in the engine compartment and somewhere close to the intake for the blower fan into the passenger compartment.
Is there any TRUE deterrent?
 
We live in the sticks. Actually a farm deep in the woods. We've had several cats that stay in the barn and while they were alive, there were no mice in the barn. The problem is there are coyotes and the cats do not live long since they like to wander off into the woods sometimes.
 
I put mouse bait blocks under the hood of my vehicles that stay outside. It also works for chipmunks. Works great.
 
Originally Posted by loneryder
I put mouse bait blocks under the hood of my vehicles that stay outside. It also works for chipmunks. Works great.

Exclusions, make it harder for them to get in, and poison bait to control the population are the tried and true methods. Everything else is hit/miss at best. The problem is rodents are fairly intelligent, they'll "learn" that that bar of Irish Spring "deterrent" doesn't pose any threat and walk right around it.
 
I also live way out in the country and mice etc are the norm for my garage...I use good old snap traps baited with peanut butter...in the summer there is usually a black snake in the garage so that takes care of things in the warmer months
 
Glue Traps for Rats.. they are big around 4" X 6" Put a dab of peanut butter in the center and put it wherever you want mice gone. The most i caught was 5 on one trap in a night. Make sure all other food in the area is gone.
 
You didn't say if your cars are in a garage or sitting out. If in a garage and you can't seal it up then giving them something more tasty than your wiring, like peanut butter on a trap, and keeping up with it will eventually get rid of the population. You can't count on a black snake and a garage cat might not be a good fit. If your cars sit outside there are lots of things to try including the ultrasonic things and flashing lights. A friend had a pack rat cause expensive damage under the hood of his Tundra and after putting in one of these he hasn't had another problem. Not sure how they work on other rodents. Rid-a-rat
 
Whoever comes up with mouse birth control bait is going to be the next billionaire. My sister lives in a Mcmansion in the upscale suburbs and she has been fighting mice since a few weeks after they moved in not long after the house was built.

Two years ago we moved from suburbia out to the sticks into a 125 year old (restored) farmhouse on 20 acres with four barns and one detached all metal two car garage and workshop, and I was horrified at the number of mice I was seeing and hearing out in the garage. When I found them nesting in the fuselage of one of my scratch built radio control planes out in the workshop, I declared all out war. I nailed at least 20 of them just in just a few days using nothing more than snap traps and peanut butter. I put out eight traps in one night and all eight of them had a guest the next day. I only have two traps out now, for the first time in over a couple months and its been a few days since I got even just one so I think I finally made a sizeable dent in the local population, but its going to be a never ending war I have a feeling.

I would caution against using poison baits. Anything that eats the carcass of that dead poisoned mouse will also get poisoned. You dont want to go killing off the snakes, vultures, owls, hawks, and anything else that feeds on them. A bag of four snap traps from Home Depot is well within the budget of even a homeless person and if you are as much as a cheapskate as I am, they are plenty reusable too. I have a few that have dried blood and fur on them from previous victories and are on their fifth or sixth go around before they become so gross even cheapskate me says its time, and I replace them.

I've moved away from storing anything out there in bags or boxes where they can nest, and have a whole arsenal of clear plastic bins with snap on lids to store anything and everything, $6 a piece at Walmart or wherever for a decent sized bin and everything in them stays mouse free, clean, dust free and no spiders or centipedes or other creepy crawlers as well. In the garage and workshop all the gaps between the metal and concrete by the floor are sealed up now with wire mesh and spray foam, and do whatever I can to minimize any gaps in garage doors or entrance door seals too. This cut down the interior spider and wasp population as a side benefit, because that was an issue too. I hate spiders and wasps as much as I hate mice.

Just a bunch of little battles to make it as difficult as possible for them to exist where you are is all you can do. You'll never deter them enough to make them nonexistent, they are very smart little beasts and have all the time in the world to figure out whatever we spent hours or days we build trying to deter them and they will always win, but you can make it as difficult as possible and severely cut down their success if you dont mind the minor though never-ending fight.

Lots of clever contraptions and ideas on Youtube, if you want to make a hobby out of it....
 
Originally Posted by quint
Just a bunch of little battles to make it as difficult as possible for them to exist where you are is all you can do. You'll never deter them enough to make them nonexistent, they are very smart little beasts and have all the time in the world to figure out whatever we spent hours or days we build trying to deter them and they will always win, but you can make it as difficult as possible and severely cut down their success if you dont mind the minor though never-ending fight.

Well said...

A snake isn't going to do it nor will a barn cat or high frequency sounds (rodents learn to ignore them). Exclusions, clearing shrubbery when possible, removing food sources and trapping/baiting are the only things that work long term.

A female mouse can have a litter of 6~12 abt once a month.. the rest is just simple math.

[Linked Image]


From Terminix

"Can these sounds actually control pests? Not with commercially-available devices. Pest behavior can be affected by certain ultrasonic sounds when administered in a very specific way, but this is a technology that is not commercially-available."

and..

"While some ultrasonic repellents may have a minor short-term impact on some pests, most don't effectively control them. And in some cases — such as the testing of rodent repellent devices in a 1995 study for the United States Department of Agriculture and the National Wildlife Research Center — the effects tend to wear off after a few days of exposure because the pests become used to the sound."
 
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I had some bags of scented stuff I left under the hood of cars I don't drive often, that seemed to help.

I recently came home from a 2 week trip to find that mice must have built a nest in the blower fan of my Jeep. Haven't taken it apart yet to vacume it out but it was fun not having heat for an hour commute in 30F weather.
 
Howcum the rodent-in-car horror stories usually involve newish vehicles? I suspect old leaky engines that coat themselves with stinky, oily grime repel self-respecting rodents. Anybody ever have them invade a leaker?
 
Originally Posted by CR94
Howcum the rodent-in-car horror stories usually involve newish vehicles? I suspect old leaky engines that coat themselves with stinky, oily grime repel self-respecting rodents. Anybody ever have them invade a leaker?


Eco friendly, soy based wiring insulation that rodents find delicious.
 
Originally Posted by Skippy722
Originally Posted by CR94
Howcum the rodent-in-car horror stories usually involve newish vehicles? I suspect old leaky engines that coat themselves with stinky, oily grime repel self-respecting rodents. Anybody ever have them invade a leaker?


Eco friendly, soy based wiring insulation that rodents find delicious.

Is that for the soy boi, non-fat, GMO free latte drinking Honda and Subaru owners?
lol.gif
 
Originally Posted by CR94
Howcum the rodent-in-car horror stories usually involve newish vehicles? I suspect old leaky engines that coat themselves with stinky, oily grime repel self-respecting rodents. Anybody ever have them invade a leaker?


A mechanic told me that wiring insulation contains some sort of peanut material.
 
Originally Posted by riff1006
A mechanic told me that wiring insulation contains some sort of peanut material.


They use a vegetable oil. Might be peanut. Had a mouse chew the insulation of 20 ' of coax int he crawlspace one time.
 
the wiring issue is so widespread that honda issued special tape to deter rodents.
if you see silver tape with x'ed out mice on it thats what it is.
 
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