Pest control/winter storage?

I use Decon and don't expose my pets to the areas where I place the stuff. I do put a packett on the passenger side floor and one in the spare tire area and one in the back. When I 1st got my car the PO had stored it in the winter. So one day when I needed to remove the front vinyl cover to replace it I found a bunch of insulation packed in by some mice. No damage other then the mess they made. I don't store the car and will drive it in the winter when the roads are good. I also see that DECON now has bait traps that the mice enter and never come out. You might want to try this. Oh I also put a sheet of BOUNCE laundry stuff in the same places. I was told once that mice don't like the smell. OK my 2 cents

 

Kevin,

First off, do you have pets? In particular cats? Dogs are not a problem as long as you keep them away from the bait; they won't eat a dead rat unless you haven't fed them in a week. I put Decon MousePruff boxes out in the corners of the garage and under the cars. Also, moth balls seem to work well at keeping pests away, though they do make the garage smell a bit funky. The other environmentally and pet-friendly method is to use sticky pads, which are sheets of paper with very sticky surface that you lay down on the floor. Put a little bait in the middle and when the mice go for the bait, they get stuck. There are "humane" mouse traps, but I never thought they worked very well. Take your pick.

 

Mothballs around the car and in the tail pipes seem to work, but don't put them in the car or you won't enjoy your first springtime drive.

Ken

 

I'm a big fan of the simple spring traps. I lived out the country for years and mice were a HUGE problem. The simple spring traps with a little peanut butter attract and kill them every time (I generally tweak the snap a little bit to make it a bit easier to trigger). A couple under the cars and a few more around the garage right along the walls then check/replace/reset once a week or so and you will not have mice.

I think the mothball thing is a myth, just like tomato juice for skunk attacks. I’ve tried both and neither are effective. The mice generally ignore the mothballs, but will take the time to roll them out if you throw them directly into a den. Oh, and when your white dog comes home smelling of skunk, the only thing tomato juice does is make him a pink dog smelling of skunk. The actual solution to both the smell and the pink is a bath with about ½ of bleach thrown into the water and let him soak in that for 15 minutes of so.

 

I'm not a big fan of the spring traps. The only thing I've ever caught in them is my own fingers. LOL

Never heard of using bleach to get rid of skunk smell. Just be sure that the dog doesn't decide to drink the bath water, like mine always did.

 

The sticky traps work well too inside but in a garage the wind tends to blow the dust and leaves and then the trap isn't sticky and doesn't work, it's more of a door map into the garage. The spring traps don't have that problem and the peanut butter stays good for a few months. If I find missing peanut butter and no mouse in the trap, it's time to tweak the trap. I've literally used 100s of them over the years. The last few I bought had a plastic bait-pad/trigger and worked well as is. I lived in an old farmhouse with a stacked field stone foundation surrounded by hay fields; mice were a pretty serious issue every fall.

I came on the bleach trying to fix the pink problem

Half a cup in a tub of water with 6"-8" for water should be plenty safe to drink I would thing, it never seemed to bother my dog. I've had good luck with 50/50 beach water in a spray bottle too. Just spray it on and rub it on good, then a normal bath....he was very good at finding skunks for a while there, I think 3 in one day was his record.

 

Heard the same thing about Bounce, but have no proof it actually works. Storing a bike in my garage this winter for a friend, so we put a few sheets under each tire. Figured it can't hurt. Hate those meeces to pieces!

 

I've got a big tent style car shelter. When I put it in, I put down a tarp that's 10' oversize for the floor. That means the tarp comes up 5' on each side of the floor. Then put down pressed wood siding for a floor. This seemed to keep the critters at bay for the 1st 4 years. No sign that they were even tempted to chew thru the tarp. Had to fix a few small holes due to wind flexing the tarp with duct tape after the 2nd year tho.

However, last winter the tarp developed a couple dozen large holes & rips from constantly being flexed by the wind. At this point it's a write-off.

Noticed the tarp holes mid-winter so I put down some rat rated sticky traps along the edges of the wall. For some reason 1 sticky trap caught about 8 or 9 mice, & the others didn't catch even 1. I also put down some pet safe bait between the raised tarp & the tent wall. No sign that the bait had been nibbled this spring.

Next year I'm going to pull the flooring out & install a new heavy duty oversize tarp, & keep the sticky traps in place.

I also tried the bucket of windshield anti-freeze described in an old Fchat thread. After a month of sub-freezing weather I went out & the bucket was frozen solid, the alcolhol had evaporated, & it never caught a thing.

 

I would be willing to wager it doesn't work. The only mouse I've ever found in my new house was in the closet where my wife keeps her detergent, bleach, and of course a box or 2 of Bounce sheets.

Traps work, repellants probably do work on mice that are neither cold nor hungry, but on a mouse that is both survival will make them come into the house or garage….even though they hear people, smell something they don’t like or you install an ultrasonic dozmawhat. Once they are in they will look for a place to hide and will find your wall or your car, not so much motorcycles unless it’s got fairings. Once they are in, poison or traps are the only things that work to get them out and I think the traps work much better without the smell of rotting mice in the walls or car.
repelants

 

I also have always lived in rural areas and mice, depending on the season and how wet it is, are a problem. Nothing works better than 50 cent spring traps you can buy at any hardware store. Get a bunch of them and place them around wheels. Mice find it easy to jump onto suspension parts and then into the car. I drive all winter, but even if the car sits for just a couple of weeks, mice may invade. It is always good to check regularly for signs of mice in and around the car while being stored. If your Ferrari is parked next to a jeep, rodents will choose the Ferrari every time. They do have taste!

PS: We have a couple of labs and they WILL eat a dead rat (or anything else) even if they just had their dinner. We would not ever use any type of poison around the house for this reason.

Dave

 

STICKY TRAPS:
They work for me because my car shelter is pretty tightly closed up during salt season, so don't get contaminated with dust, etc. Managed to get one well stuck to my hand last spring while carrying it out to dispose of it & it's load of mice.

Funny thing, I've never had mice in this house, the attached garage, or the cars I've kept in the driveway. Wonder if always having a cat or two around has something to do with it?

DE-SKUNKING:
Here's a peroxide/bakeing soda/detergent based skunk odor removal treatment for pets that's quicker, more effective, & safer than your bleach solution. It was invented by a chemist to specificly go after the thiols that mercaptan contains after his dog got sprayed:

http://dan.drydog.com/patsyann/skunk.html

The originating chemist's site:

http://home.earthlink.net/~skunkremedy/home/

It's becoming pretty well known as the ultimate skunk odor killer.

 

Sticky traps are good if they stay clean. There are covered ones out there too these days that help with that. The point is, traps, not bounce of mothballs or ........

It's the same thing really...he's just 25 years late to the show

Peroxide and bleach are both strong oxidizers and neither is all really all that safe in concentration. He buy dillute peroxide and adds soap to the solution, I buy concetrated bleach and dillute and add soap in the bath water...I'm not sure was the baking soda does, I guess kick up the peroxide. Either way my dog's been gone a long time now.

 

All great ideas. I use rat poison purchased at the local hardware store. I just put it out, since my cats cannot get into my garage. If that is a concern, you can buy plastic or metal bait holders. Not sure where, but would assume a farm supply center or pest control shop would sell them. A google search may work as well.

 

Get a heavy duty car cover and put a cat in the garage. The car cover is in case the cat decides to climb on the car.

 

I just make sure the car cover is over the tail pipes so nothing can get in. Then I do an inspection of the engine bay before venturing out.

 

Well the mice are starting to fall. I have been replacing my Decon pellets and the trays are being consumed. So it looks like the the death rate in my area will be going up. As the weather has started to turn over the last few weeks the mice start looking to get into my garage so the 1st line of defence is putting out the bait trays. It looks like a bumber crop this year but after a few more weeks this will calm down. I think this works best for me.

 

Steve, keep the bait trays out year round, you would be surprised that they can be consumed at anytime of year, not just winter.

 

FYI, sticky traps do not always work as planned and are really not the humane way to go. Some years ago I worked on a project at St. Nicholas Island off the So. Cal coast. They had (still have?) a large rodent problem there and attempted to use sticky traps. Sadly, sometimes the mice would chew their feet off to get away. The hungry rats that were strong enough to get out of the traps would wait for the mice that didn't get away and ... well, it wasn't a pretty sight. Spring traps are a much more humane way to control rodents. Just remember where you placed them and watch out for your fingers.

 

Moth balls do not work. Little frickin' mouses pee'd all over my little pile of moth balls meant to keep them out of my (Pontiac) GTO engine bay.

Dryer sheets do not work. Little frickin' mouses built their nest right on top of them in the kick panel vents of the GTO.

Spring-bar traps DO work. But they have to be out of the way where the dog runs or else doggie gets toes or nose snapped off.

Mice look for food and shelter. Remove those and mice go away.

 

electric toaster................... i woke 1 morning with a corker of a hang over hungry as hell... all i had in my fridge was 2 slices of bread.... some butter bit of vegimite you little ripper i said to my self ... so i put the bread in the toaster push the switch down.... instantly the toaster started sparking and arking then this awful smell and smoke made it's way out the top of the toaster i unplug it and look inside this poor little mouse had a craving for the crumbs at the bottom of toaster..... fried that little f##ker hahahahah!!
1st line of defence 1/2 doz tweeked mouse traps work everytime

 

Agree, how do people think "sticky" traps are "humane"?

1. You get into a trap (sticky) and can't move your legs.
2. You either wait to die from starvation (tons of fun) or chew off your legs, (another good option to escape...
3. Where's the humanity in that...???

Give me an anvil (spring trap) to the head and be done with it.

JMHO

 

Here's what I have used. Get yourself some Victor brand rat traps. They sell for $2 plus change at the local Tractor Supply Store. Probably available at other farm and hardware stores. Don't use cheese to bait the trap because it will dry up, crack, and fall off. And when the rat nibbles on it, it will usually break off, even though the ensuing tug at the cheese releases the trap and kills the rat. You've successfully killed the rat but now have to re-bait the trap. But don't use cheese or peanut butter to bait the traps. I use a tasty treat by Jack Links called a "beef steak". It's available in grocery stores and gas stations everywhere. It's not really a beef "jerky". It's more like a processed beef strip that has a dense texture. And that is good when it comes to baiting a rat trap. The strips are about an inch wide and nearly a foot long. Just slice off a piece about a quarter of an inch long, and therefore about an inch wide. It will slide right onto the hook of a Victor rat trap and will stay there. Since it's a preserved product, it will last a long time. All a rat has to do is nibble a little bit and WHAM!!! He's history. And the beef strip stays right on the trap. Mr. Rat never has time enough to get it off the hook. And since it stays on the hook, you don't have to re-bait the trap. I've trapped several rats with the same trap and no re-baiting necessary. I buy the peppered flavor because it tastes better to me. What I don't need for baiting traps, I can eat.

I also buy moth cakes at Wal-Mart that have the hanging hook on them. Just unwrap them and hang them anywhere inside the car. They eventually evaporate until there is nothing left of them. So far, my Corvette has avoided mice and rat infestation. But as others have said, I have no proof that rodents don't like the smell. But most animals avoid chemical smells and they're cheap so might as well give it a try.
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