I’ve declared war! This mouse got snagged by it’s foot and was under the driver’s seat making noise before I pulled it out. From what entry point are these mice coming in to my beautiful new car??? I have two young kids and it’s virtually impossible to keep food stuff out of my wonderful new Subie. It’s garaged here in Minnesota and I’m beginning to think that a few of these garage mice have made road trips WITH US IN THE CAR TOO! HELP! Is there a place where they are getting into the car that can be patched up? Is there something I can do short of removing frozen mice (or half dead ones!) from the traps I’ve set in the back seats? My kids are beginning to think that removing mice from traps in the car is a prerequisite of going to town!
One thing that may help is to set the heater to “recirculate” to close the outside air door when you park the car…it seems have helped our cars when we previously had nests in the fan housing.
It is possible they have a nest in the car or close to where you park. Cat, traps or poison are the usual fixes.I like all of those except poison, because the only thing worse than live mice living in your car, are dead mice rotting in your car.
If the OP’s car has automatic climate control, the recirculate setting automatically goes to the “fresh air” setting when the system is shut off. On the other hand, if it is a regular heater-A/C system, your suggestion would work.
Close openings into the garage. Remove food (garbage, bird food, pet food,… from the garage or seal it up. Put traps in the garage (near (touching) the walls works best).
Dealt with this for years. In my area, it is worse in the winter, but they can invade any time. Since they can get in spaces as small as a dime, it is near impossible to screen them out.
As mentioned the worst is when they nest in the blower fan, you turn on the fan and are hit by a cloud of shredded firewall insulation and mice parts.
Anyway, only solution I have come up with is pretty much trapping the little pests. I have a Victor Tin Cat, which is a live trap and holds up to 30 at a time (most I ever caught at once was 12 one night in the trunk of the Mustang). You can bait it, but don’t have to.
The normal snap traps also work, but if you have a lot of mice, it takes a lot of nights to catch them all (They only seem to be caught at night).
Youcan safely put a Tin Cat outside the rigt, but in my area, I won’t put snap traps outside the rigs, because I end up catching more birds than mice (They like peanut butter too).
This isn’t a big page, and it has pictures of most of the traps and discusses other ways to stop mice, including in cars. The Tin Cat comes with a solid roof or clear. I end up taking them out into the countryside and letting them go, but most people sink the Cat in Water…
On our car with climate control…closing the vent disables the CC; an 04 Toyota
“a half dead mouse”
I’m curious. Which half of the mouse was dead?
Living in a rural area, and having a garage full of vintage collectible iron, I have been fighting the mouse problem for years. My solution was Sophie the Diesel Cat and her son Butch. Sophie adopted us and promptly had a batch of kittens a week later. We kept one of the kittens and then had Sophie fixed.
The cats and I have an agreement. They have full run of my garage, and receive shelter and an unlimited amount of premium cat food in exchange for a mouse free garage.
This arrangement has worked very well for over two years now. The downside is cat paw prints on all of the uncovered vehicles in the shop. The upside is not even a hint of a mouse. I personally think that mice can smell the presence of a cat in a building, and they refuse to enter for self preservation.
I’ll take cat paw prints over a mouse nest any day. Much easier to clean up.
Benzman
What? No ‘mouse to mouse’ resuscitation?
Any time a window is open, a mouse can get in.
not to give such a smart aleck response, but;
the reason the mice are going to the car is because there is a ready supply of food, and no threat to their existence.
so… you do the math. remove the food, and kill them!
seriously, the “sticky traps” work great. and removing them is the answer. if they cant breed, they dont last.