Mice in the Audi

[Andi]

Not mine......... I have a Mondeo with indicators and a safe distance between my front bumper and the car in front. 

Anyways, she lives in an old farm house in the middle of nowhere, mice have gotten into the car which is a new pride and joy for her.

They have started chewing the back seat, pooing in the glove box and have chewed through her airbag wires, plus they are setting the alarms off at night.

The good news is her husband used to work for rentokill and so has cought 4 mice. But they cant seem to find out how theyre getting in.

Any ideas?

 

Andi

 

[kevin the chicken]

They are destructive little buggers. Got to be up through the engine compartment then through a wiring harness hole or heater pipe. They can climb most surfaces and squeeze through a hole the size of a pencil. We have just caught a couple in the house, I  did think we wouldn't have had the problem if we still had a cat as the dogs are uninterested. They would be interested in a cat though so that won't work. Best bait for traps is chocolate or toffee. I favour those chewy toffees that get l left in the selection box after xmas.

[nelmo]

I would imagine 4 mice is the tip of a very large iceberg

[Sparepart]

Yes I agree with nelmo, Old farmhouse is probably harbouring a plague, they are using the car as a playground and not living there.  I've had similar problems in the past. Forget humane traps or poison, keep putting down spring traps until no more mice are caught. Smooth peanut butter worked best for me, not a big dollup, just enough to fill the little bowl on the trap. Position the "front" of the trap so that is up against a vertical surface, like a wall or the side of a box etc. This makes sure the mouse approaches from the side and gets a good clean chop of the neck when the trap closes, quite humane.

It helps to avoid further infestations by making sure there is no easy food around, bird feeders drop seeds, cats and dogs feeding bowls kept clean. All food anywhere near ground level kept in steel containers. I don't think they can digest what they gnaw at inside the car its mostly plastic, I think they gnaw to wear away their teeth which i think keep growing. They multiply to eat all the food that is available. No food, no mice. Innocent things like food scraps, bread, peelings etc in a compost bin can keep them around. Thats my experience.

[Peter Bell]

Fairly common occurence I'm afraid, I know someone who is restoring an Elan, the mice had destroyed the headlining so he replaced it, due to other things it was a while before he got back to it only to discover they had eaten the new headlining too!

[kevin the chicken]

I thought we probably still hadn't got rid of our problem, after all it makes sense that the two I had caught were a breeding pair. I checked the traps this morning and one was upside down with the tail visible, so I said to my wife just the one in here but when I picked it up there were two in it!! Both juveniles but I have never done or seen that before. I agree traps are the best solution,  the metal ones do work but wooden ones are best as you can bend the wire that holds the spring to adjust sensitivity. Mine go off half the time before they are in position but if they go off in the night I always have an occupant. Thats two more for toffee by the way!!!

[Andi]

On 11/14/2020 at 12:09 PM, nelmo said:

I would imagine 4 mice is the tip of a very large iceberg

Another 26 caught today 

[fry61]

Have found mice at the end of a long 20 mm steel conduit run only electrocuted once they tried to crawl across the live 3 phase starter contacts. They would chew through the live cables down to copper & get away with it.

[Sparepart]

While we are on mouse stories. My next door neighbour used poison, while I was using traps. A while after there were no more mice in traps or signs of droppings or gnawed bags of flour etc. I noticed a bad smell whenever I took a shower, at first I thought it was usual BO ... but one morning the smell made my eyes water. I investigated in the loft, as soon as I stuck my head through the trap door the smell was like a wall. Torch in one hand, cloth over my nose and mouth with the other I picked my way over the joists to the large header tank and peered over the edge to see a decomposing bloated mouse at the surface. Returning with a plastic bag I tried fishing it out by the tail, but the tail just came away, returning with latex gloves I scooped as many of the bits out as I could, all the time causing fresh waves of obnoxion. Obviously I had to disinfect the system and then flush many times before using it. Now, years later, I still have a good sniff of any shower water before I get under it, not just in my house, anywhere.

[nelmo]

So, if we're doing dead mouse stories...  - I had a similar horrendous smell from our garage. After much investigation, I finally found the mouse inside a black plastic bin. There was no hole in the bin, the bin had never been used, so was clean and had an almost airtight seal - how the hell did the mouse get in?

And how did something so small smell so bad that we could smell it 2 floors up (this was a townhouse we used to live in)?! 

[Kerry]

A guy I knew a number or years ago found mice in his Sierra, he laid bait and caught a few, eventually he went to his insurance company, who paid for the car to go in a sealed chamber to gas all living things.

The car was returned back, also with a new seat due to the mice eating it, a week later the mice returned.

He sold the car.