I have a mouse problem. It seems an industrious mouse has found a way into my 2010 Prius. At our cabin, I have to leave the car outside overnight (no garage). In the past 6 weeks, I’ve had 2 incidents of a mouse getting into it. The first time, about a cup of birdseed was brought in and stored in the headliner. I heard it rolling around when I went around curves, and upon pulling back a portion of the headliner, was pelted with the birdseed. We were able to get the seeds out (at least I don’t hear it rolling around anymore). The 2nd time, the mouse came in and took the tissues from a box on the front passenger seat and made a cozy nest in the storage area of the trunk. He sure knows his way around the car! Must have read the owners manual.
How is he getting into the car? So far, there’s no damage and we haven’t seen the clever bugger, but we want to repel/discourage him. Any ideas of where to start? We’ve had a number of cars over the years and this is the only one that we’ve had this problem.
There is little you can do to prevent entry unless you get proactive. Some say dryer sheets help, who knows. Mice got into my headliner and chewed the wiring to the rear tailgate. $400 corrective dollars later, I decided to set traps lased with peanut butter around the cars. We have killed a few since which IMO is the only cure.
. . . I was watching Leno a while back and he was showing some children’s books/rhymes/poems that were rewritten to be “politically correct” and the one that stuck in my memory bank was Three Blind Mice, a classic. The new title, as corrected, was Three Visually Challenged Rodent-Americans,
We have the same problem with several vehicles where I work. The best thing you can do is put out poison. If you have pets, you might want to use poison stations your pets aren’t able to get into. You can buy the poison you need at most hardware stores.
This tends to happen most to vehicles that are rarely driven. The more you drive, the less likely this will be to happen.
To answer the OP’s question about how they are getting in, they can get through pretty small spaces, and your car has lots of them, maybe in the wheel wells, where the mice can get in without making a new hole.