Mice found the ketchup packages that I had in my glovebox. (I only drive it about once a week). Even after cleaning, sanitizing, and removing any trace of food - I’m still finding mice feces in the glovebox. If I leave poison in the car, I’m afraid they will die in the car, then I will be fighting a horrible odor. Aside from keeping all food out of the vehicle, what is the best way to keep them out and make sure they don’t die in the vehicle?
People I know that have rodent problems when it comes to their vehicles put up something like this. http://www.provenrepellents.com/products.php?pid=38
Tester
Naw, this is even better:
http://z.about.com/d/paranormal/1/0/T/T/sniper_cat.jpg
Seriously, though, the car needs to be inhospitable to the vermin, and the first step is removing all traces of food. You can also get animal repellant spray at a pet supply store.
At the Chrysler dealer I worked at there was an advertising sign overlooking our new car lot. Birds used to perch up there and u know what all over the cars. We got a fake bird of prey similar to Tester’s example and put it on the advertising sign. Helped quite a lot. Mice are afraid of owls as much as small birds are, aren’t they?
Is the car outside or in a garage? If outside, just put traps in it and check them once or twice a day. If in a garage, but them both inside and outside the car.
Here in rural Mexico, I use ultrasonic pest repelling devices. With a 2850 square feet house, 5 of them from the Aurrera (Wal-mart subsidy) keep the house not only completely free from mice and rats even though there is plenty of edibles in the house to attract them, but also we get very few scorpions. Before ultrasonics, we had one big one a week, and now it’s like one small one every three months or so.
The problem is plugging and unplugging it when you park and when you take off in the morning. I have seen these ultrasonic machines in the past in Home Depot, but not sure if they still sell them. Get a powerful one.
Mice build a nest in one of my cars under the hood, just behind the battery. When I destroyed the nest they moved to another car, and this time they built the nest inside the blower. Got trapped by blower doors, a couple of them died… It took me quite some time to find the nest and clean everything. Almost a year later I still have a slight odor in the car… Some pics here - http://www.funandsafedriving.com/ftopict-83.html
I ended up catching them (alive) using a “tin cat”. Unfortunately they froze to death while waiting for me to release them. Oh well…maybe next time.
Classic traps work too, as beadsandbeads suggested.