Mice!

[psytechguy]

So what do you do when mice take up residence in your rig? I haven't found anything that works very well.

Seems like everyone I know is plagued with mice and packrats right now. Parking in the same place for any length of time seems to be asking for it. 

There's mouse turds under the hood and the trucks interior has "that smell."

 

[highdesertranger]

well my dog is a great mouser. I have had them try to set up a nest in my vehicle before. he will relentlessly pursue them until they are gone. this usually leads to a poor nights sleep for me, because he is up and down all night. I gladly put up with it because he's doing his job. highdesertranger

 

[buckwilk]

I camped on Soda Lake north of Pinedale, Wyo. this summer and had a massive invasion of the little buggers. I tried the glue traps, don't, they don't kill so you have to. That isn't a big a deal, problem is they like to get caught at night, so you get woke up with them flopping around trying to get loose. P. I. A. I won't use poison, too dangerous for my dog. What worked for me was peanut butter on regular traps. Get 4, set 2 side by side trigger in opposite direction from each other. Then put 1 on each end of the first two. Now here is the " buckwilk " secret. Put several kleenex tissue lightly wadded in a corner, they can't resist tissue for nests, set your trap array in front of them. Killer, works over and over. Always do a warrior dance after your successful hunt. Go here http://bertc.com/subfive/recipes/cookingrats.htm for tasty mouse recipes.

 

[psytechguy]

I have a friend whose little dog goes absolutely nuts on mice in his trailer. I think I need to make an appointment!

 

[LeeRevell]

If you and the pooch can be away from the van for a few hours, Tractor Supply Store carries a kit of six small cans of "Bug Bombs".  Like little spray grenades.  Two would be perfect for a larger van.  Set one at each end, make sure all food and containers are protected from the spray.   Open it up and air out for awhile before entering.  You'd have three 'doses'.   Works great on bugs, should work on wee rodents.

A five gallon bucket can be rigged as a bucket trap.  Fill halfway with water, run a narrow ramp to the bucket, with a hinged drop-down above the bucket - the little critters take the plunge.  Works again and again.  No poison.

 

[bcbullet]

With the bucket trap, don't worry about getting all fancy with hinges or rolling pop cans, just put the ramp up to the edge and smear some peanut butter or congealed bacon fat just above the water line...works wonders and unlike the cans etc. you will not scare them off if it does not drop them in the first time.
I have a deal I make with the mice...stay out of my home/vehicles/shed/firewood pile and it's live and let live. Break the deal and all bets are off.

 

[SternWake]

I have a deal I make with the mice...stay out of my home/vehicles/shed/firewood pile and it's live and let live. Break the deal and all bets are off.

I used to frequent Baja, and sometimes the Mice were horrible, and would keep me up at night.

The Bucket trick was used to thin their population.  For some strange reason it did not work with natural peanut butter, It had to be the stuff loaded with hydrogenated oils.

One trip, late the  first night after being tortured with scratching of them trying to get inside,  I set up the trap, I got 27 mice, and the lever of water was the only reason I did not get more, as they were able to jump off each other's backs.  I gleefully fed them to the fish and ospreys  and seagulls with a tennis racket in the morning in between sips of strong coffee.

Each night was successively less and less mice caught until it was no longer an issue.

There were other trips where they left me alone, and I returned the favor.  

I don't care how many times one might have watched the Secret of Nihm when they were young, but mice are not cute, they are disease spreading vermin.  I will not willingly share my  space with them.

 

[gcal]

Mie I can deal with. Ants are driving me crazy.Glue traps, snap traps with peanut butter, poisons, steel wool in all openings than cannot be sealed off completely, forget deterrents as the mice think they are aphrodisiacs. if I were on a homestead, I would get a couple farm cats and encourage owls, but then, I would skip the poisons. Mice I can deal with. Ants are driving me crazy.

 

[Sabatical]

The "old timers" say to keep the pack rats out of the engine compartent you prop the hood up a bit. Apparently they don't like the light. Maybe it won't work but easy to try.

 

[gcal]

I used to frequent Baja, and sometimes the Mice were horrible, and would keep me up at night.

The Bucket trick was used to thin their population.  For some strange reason it did not work with natural peanut butter, It had to be the stuff loaded with hydrogenated oils.

One trip, late the  first night after being tortured with scratching of them trying to get inside,  I set up the trap, I got 27 mice, and the lever of water was the only reason I did not get more, as they were able to jump off each other's backs.  I gleefully fed them to the fish and ospreys  and seagulls with a tennis racket in the morning in between sips of strong coffee.

Each night was successively less and less mice caught until it was no longer an issue.

There were other trips where they left me alone, and I returned the favor.  

I don't care how many times one might have watched the Secret of Nihm when they were young, but mice are not cute, they are disease spreading vermin.  I will not willingly share my  space with them.

Love the tennis racket idea.

 

[flying kurbmaster]

I heard to spread Bounce sheets generously around, I do this when I store my rigs, apparently mice don't like the smell, so far it has worked for me but maybe the mice are not there to start with most years, I got a feeling that I had some mice this year in my heater ducting as a bunch of grass came flying out when I turned the fan on this fall, I set up dinner for them in small lids close by the heater ducts, I hope they enjoy it while I am away.

 

[gcal]

Mie I can deal with. Ants are driving me crazy.Glue traps, snap traps with peanut butter, poisons, steel wool in all openings than cannot be sealed off completely, forget deterrents as the mice think they are aphrodisiacs. if I were on a homestead, I would get a couple farm cats and encourage owls, but then, I would skip the poisons. Mice I can deal with. Ants are driving me crazy.

If you use poisons, put them in a live trap. That way, the mice die in the trap and do not crawl off to poison predators.

 

[SternWake]

Love the tennis racket idea.

I learned the bucket trick at a remote western Australia surfbreak.  One guy cut the bottom off of a bucket to make it extra tall so they could not jump out with no water in the bottom, and would tie them live with fishing hooks along their body and cast them out in the ocean.  Never took more than a minute for a strike.  More than once, the hooked fish would get taken by a shark and one would pull up a fishhead with perhaps a still live mouse in it.

In Baja, during Semana Santa the camping areas would fill up with Mexicans.  Most every one of their vehicles had its hood propped open to some degree to prevent mice from feasting on the apparently peanut butter infused wire insulation.

If a gringo's hood ever opened, and a Mexican saw it, then there was a gringo and three Mexicans under the hood in no time.

 

[eDJ_]

My Mom's side of the family had a Dairy Farm operation when I was a kid. Great Grand Dad was still alive when I was a kid and he had plenty of "barn cats" but try as they would they still couldn't get them all.

GG Dad had a trick up his sleeve.  He would mix concrete mortar with corn meal.  Put it in small bowls with a bowl
of water beside it.   This wouldn't poison anything.  But the mice and rats would eat any concoction if they thought they were getting some kind of food and the taste of the corn was all they needed.  Then they would
get thirsty and drink the water.   "Game Over".    The mortar would harden in their gut and they would die of
terminal constipation. 

It was rough on rats and no dice for mice too !  

 

[LeeRevell]

I have found the bad oil-laced PB to NOT attract varmints.  As an experiment I once left a good dollop of Canola Oil laced PB in a saucer exposed in various places for months......   NO mice, NO roaches, not even any MOLD!!  Nothing would touch it.  So now I refuse to eat anything with Canola Oil in it, as much as possible.  If the vermin won't touch it, it has no food value.

In my prior home, in ten years there I had a mouse infestation only one year.  Tried various things......
I finally resorted to "small game hunting", finding their 'game trails' and baiting it with natural PB.  I lay in wait in my hide.... lights off....    only the soft glow of a couple night lights.   Hark......    noise......  here he comes!  "BAM!",  picked the bugger off the top of the VCR at ten feet with my CO2 pellet pistol!  Like hitting a dog with a 20mike-mike.  No thoughts of skinning this one for a trophy.   :blush:

Final tally at end of 'season' - four to traps, fifteen to the pellet pistol, 12 to poison (estimated, some bodies weren't found for some time).....,  and one particularly stupid young mouse to my size fifteen boot.  The invasion stopped once I bagged "Big Momma".  You have to get the Queen! 

 

[GotSmart]

Mouse~B~Gone

 

[Spirituallifetime]

Chickens will keep mice in check also! I watched one chase a mouse and kill it then the other chickens fought over it!

 

[Sabatical]

I heard to spread Bounce sheets generously around, I do this when I store my rigs, apparently mice don't like the smell, so far it has worked for me but maybe the mice are not there to start with most years, I got a feeling that I had some mice this year in my heater ducting as a bunch of grass came flying out when I turned the fan on this fall, I set up dinner for them in small lids close by the heater ducts, I hope they enjoy it while I am away.

For a while i had a kawasaki concours which has a full fairing and many places for mice to hide. The mice love a warm engine to spend the night on and mine seemed to be a magnet for them when parked by our home in the woods. I tried the dryer sheet trick. The mice sent me a thankyou note for providing them with such excellent nesting material. We switched to mothballs. Boy do those stink when you forget to remove them and the motor gets hot.
No BS, one time i started the bike and shot a mouse out of the exhaust pipe. It startled me and he didn't care for it much either [emoji2]

 

[LeeRevell]

Saw a PBS TV show once, set in Merry Olde England.  A barnfull of rats, and they set loose a Jack Russell Terror on those vermin.   He had him a great time, tearing into the rats!  The JRT was a bred ratter, so should do well against mice too.

 

[Wander Woman]

If you're in a forested area, keep in mind that Deer Mice carry hantavirus and take great care when cleaning up nests or feces - you must spray the feces with a 15% bleach & water solution before cleaning up to kill the virus. Whatever you do, DO NOT vacuum, this will spread the microscopic virus into the air.  Breathing dust from their pee or feces is how you contract the virus.  It kills 50% of the people that get the disease.  I'm lucky - it didn't kill me or leave me with lasting breathing problems, but I was and am exceptionally healthy. I did want to die while suffering from it and spent several days in the hospital.  You can also purchase an N95 mask which will prevent breathing a virus in while cleaning up. 

At onset it feels like the worst flu you've ever had - muscle aches so bad you can't stand to have anything touch your skin, not clothing or sheets - after two days of that it cleared up & I thought I was well until I walked to the end of my driveway to get the mail and couldn't catch my breath, it was as if I had climbed a mountain. (at that poingt I went to a walk-in clinic in Flagstaff, they took my blood oxygen levels and asked how long I'd been here, when they learned I lived here, they called an ambulance).