We recently moved from Boston to Whitefish, Montana and drove 2,800 miles in our Toyota 4-Runner. Last week, I noticed a suspicious ball of lint in the back seat and assumed one of my dogs chewed on the seat cover. However, when I mentioned it to my husband, he said he had also recently found a large ball of fuzz in the back seat. We decided to set a mouse trap to make sure no one was living off the cracker crumbs under my baby’s car seat. Sure enough, a few hours later, the critter was caught! Question: How does a mouse get in a car with all the windows rolled up and the doors shut?? How can we avoid rodents from getting a free ride in the future? Thank you for your help. I haven’t driven in a week.
Well that’s your problem. You haven’t driven in a week, and you live in the middle of the (beautiful) wilderness. Cars have all sorts of openings. There’s tons in the firewall where hoses and wires pass through, and there’s air vents, and other assorted spaces. Rodents have an amazing ability to squeeze through holes much smaller than their bodies. It’s winter, and it’s pretty sucky to be a mouse running around outside in the cold waiting to get eaten by an owl. You were nice enough to park a safe, enclosed nesting space for the mouse, and since it doesn’t move frequently, the mouse thinks it’s the perfect place to hole up for the winter.
Move the car around, and get some anti-rodent products.
Here’s one that supposedly works well and, unlike most of the others, doesn’t stink up your car:
Alison, Keep Your Feet Up! They’re In Your House, Too ! Welcome To Rural America !
Forget about the ones eating cracker crumbs. Big deal. Those little critters like to set up residence in the engine compartment and they love the taste of automotive wiring !
Use the “search” feature above and see all the questions and ridiculous solutions to this common complaint.
Hope that eases your aprehensions some or are you still homesick ?
I will say that the beginning of cold weather is like the rodent “pledge week” ( a lot of ose little fools either weren’t around last winter or can’t remember it), so keep baiting and trapping and pretty soon your traps will come up empty. We hope !
Good luck ! Here Kitty, Kitty, Kitty !
CSA
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There have been a number of critter problems and fixes posted on this site. There are people that swear by the dryer sheets, I wonder if you could let us know if it works for you? Usually if you see 1, there are more, keep that trap baited. I have had good success in my house with the tube, no kill traps and peanut butter, though I think I need to mark the mice as no matter how far away I take them to let run free on the farm, I think they find their way back.
I pulled into a warm aircraft hangar with my freezing Thunderbird and left the doors open for 45 minutes. The mouse was never seen in the car again. I saved $4.00 on my next registration when I didn’t have to renew my zoo permit.