I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this. I'm at my parents house. They live out in the country, and there's a field behind their house. That field was plowed in the Spring, and apparently they've had problems with mice eversince. (One chewed up the back seat of their new Corolla. ) Earlier this evening, my mom was outside and heard something strange...it was a mouse chewing on something...from the direction of my MINI. She came and got me, and I popped the hood (bonnet). There were mouse droppings on the intercooler. I checked everything on top and saw no damage in the obvious places. (Spark plug wires, hoses, etc.) I started it, and everything seems fine. I'm going to put it on ramps tomorrow, so I can take a look underneath. I'm really hoping it was just chewing on a skid plate. So, the reason for this post is that I was wondering what I should look for...what ever it was chewing on, it was making a loud noise...maybe a hard plastic of some sort? I'll take a good look at wires....anything else? Maybe the the fans? Anyway, I would appreciate any input you may have.

Thank you,

Seth

 

Seth,

I believe a good old outdoor farm cat is what you need. Doesn't quite help you with what to look for but it will sure save you money in the long run.

Good Luck!

 

Good luck with this one. When I lived on the farm we stored some of our vehicles in a special barn/quonset. Tried poison under the cars and that seemed to work. Had the same problem at our house in Mexico but with rats. Those suckers die and hide in dark corners. They have sufficient size to really stink. (and yes we had barn cats to no avail)

I have heard of people advocating mothballs in strategic corners of the car but I've never tried it.

 

plug wires, that's what a friend found the mice liked in his area.

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...an-cleric.html

Maybe a box of d-Con on the ground, next to the inner sidewall of all four tires?

Good luck!

 

Wow! Too bad.. There's a MINI covertible at our local dealer that was left in a barn and when the owner came back the MINI was completely destroyed from the inside out.

I would say that you should inspect every wire and hose that you can to make sure you won't find out at the wrong time that it was your brake line.

 

I had a mouse or something chew plug wires and boots, and my ecu harness. Luckily nothing was damaged to the point of not working. Its more a the nuisance factor than anything. Worst part is I've never parked the car in the sticks so I dont really know when it happened.

Check rubbery plastic parts, if it was making alot of noise check radiator parts ps housings, etc.

 

Slice up some Irish Spring soap and put it in tins on the floor of the car. Keeps the mice out.

 

An old spy trick, Tabasco hot sauce around tire rodents hate it they wont even eat chease if its been smothered with tabasco.

 

There's always mouse traps of course. Peanut butter makes a great bait, no poison issues.

Keep a rodent eating snake in the garage. Always useful.

And of course, cats. If there's a cat, and it's litter box in the garage, the mice won't care much for the predator smell.

 

Yeah give em some soap

 

Previous owner had mice issues too.

Plug boots are chewed up.

He also had to put some thick guage Mesh over intake opening and fastened it there with some black gunk glue...


YUK!


GROSS but effective......

I originally couldnt figure out WHY it was there, and NAM members whom read my post was not able to figure it out either, so I removed it and fixed it up a tad.




And a good armed barn cat is highly recommended.


or ..........

 

ditto on checking the intake, I had a little family of yellow jackets in there not too long ago. Mice can squeeze in almost anywhere.

 

Bounce dryer sheets work good for repelling mice. Old Rv'r trick. Put them in the footwells and under the hood if you can.
Who knows where the little buggers were chewing. I'd check wiring and brake lines!

 

id have to agree that a cat is the right answer.

find someone that has free kittens, get like 2 or 3 and let them run loose.

we had a mouse issue, and the cats took out the mice in the barn, then took out the squirrles, rabbits, chipmunks, and nearly all the birds that were around...

they do a great job....

unless you live to close to a heavily traveled road

 

We love cats. :-)

 

don't get a male cat, the strays will spray everywhere. If I were going to get an animal to find and kill a mouse, I'd find a snake, toss it in the garage if you have one. they are good hunters and won't overpopulate and kill everything else or beg to come inside like a cat would. I guess I'm not a cat person though, I'd rather have about any other animal lurking around than a cat. sounds like the mouse has probably made a home somewhere inside your car, maybe inside the dash where its nice and cozy. if you're not too squeamish, toss the snake in the car, it'll find the mouse.
you just might get a little freaked out having a snake reside inside the cars inner workings. I can picture the snake slithering up your leg one day when you're driving.

 

Ummm, I thinking that throwing a snake in your car to get rid of a mouse is kind of defeating the purpose.

I think my wifes answer is the best.... "Can't this guy just park his car somewhere else?"

 

This won't be of any help, but ...we had a family of hawks move into the nearby woods recently. Bye-bye mice.