Car in Storage (Critter's home) Beware!

Well,

Last night, i decided to uncover my 328 and put a batter tender on the battery, seeing that the car has been sitting for about 3 months now in my garage in storage. So, i moved the cover off of the hood, popped the lid and started removing the spare tire. While i was removing the spare tire, i notice some white/gray foamy stuff behind the plastic cover arounf the A/C and Brake stuff along the front under the windshield... Hmmm???? I thought, so i stuck a screw driver behind the plastic cover and started picking this crap out, well, it smelled real bad, like old urin and small mice crap came rolling out. Well, my friken stomach just dropped, thinking OH MY GOD! So i removed the plastic cover and saw that there was a nest there around by the A/C stuff, i dug it out and it looked like the critter must have moved out, i hope......

So, i went and did a quick look over in the interior for any damage, none found, but i just went over quickly, it was cold out.... I am just afraid now to pop the trunk lid and look under the engine compartment... gulp.......

So, for those of you that have your car in storage, probably best to check on it at least once a month and do a complete examination, etc.....

 

Yuk! The same thing happened to me with my Mercedes. I NEVER drive this car,maybe twice a year when I take it in for an oil change, so when I popped the trunk to connect the battery, I found a hoard to sunflower seeds. I do store 40 lb bags of seeds to feed my chipmunks. So, how they climbed under the car cover and into the trunk is beyond me! After hearing your story, I'm afraid to look any furthur!
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It is pretty common is our area. I had a nest in my trunk as well. I know the smell that you are talking about it is horrible!!! So now I start the lamborghini once a month and let it run and then close the door. Anything that was alive in my garage is now dead

 

When I put my 328 away for winter I always remove the plastic surround under the front hood and leave it out of the car so that I can easily inspect for critter infestation. None so far...

Key to keeping them out is to not have ANY food or nesting material available nearby. One peanut or sunflower seed can feed a whole family of mice for a long time.

The "best" thing about mice is that they just pee wherever they happen to be. Even in their own beds. Or on their food. They also are nibblers, they tend to want to taste everything around them. Take a bite, discard it. Try something else, discard it. Until everything is chewed up.

P.S. - moth balls or dryer sheets don't work to repel the little monsters.

 

I am just afraid to look farther around the car, when we get a nice day, i will pull it out in the driveway and totally go over it..

A friend of mine said he use to get tons of mice in their family's cabin over the winter months, their solution was this :

They took a large bucket, filled it half way with antifreeze, at the top of the bucket, they attached an empty 2 liter coke bottle to a rod length wise, so the bottle would spin. They then coated the bottle with peanut butter and placed the bucket near a ledge. What would happen, the mice would jump at the bottle to get the peanut butter and they would fall into the antifreeze and not be able to get out. The first year they did that, they had about 25 mice in the bucket (Dead of course). Every year after that the number decreased finally down to zero. So, they either killed off all the mice in their area or they just got smart and moved next door to the neighbors house...

Maybe i will try that if their are more lurking around......

So, moth balls don't work? OK, scratch that one off the list to try......

 

They don't work at all, neither do Bounce dryer sheets. I've heard of the anti-freeze in a bucket thing but that doesn't seem practical to have around the car.

My '67 Pontiac GTO used to be stored in a mouse infested garage. I had that car filled with moth balls and dryer sheets. The little monsters pee'd all over the mothballs I had under the hood and made a honkin' big nest behind a kick panel out of shredded dryer sheets. At least they didn't get into my upholstery or chew up anything. The car did smell a little "mousy" and I had to pull off the kick panel and clean it out really well to get rid of the smell.

I put a few snap traps along the wall; caught about 5 little critters - 2 brown mice, 1 gray mouse, and 2 voles. No problems after that.

Now my cars are in a sealed garage which has been the best thing for keeping critters out.

 

3 bars of Irish Spring cut in thirds per car.Scatter them around like you would with moth balls.I've been using them in my stored cars for the last few years,seems to work.

 

I think you've just been lucky. No professional pest control service or city rodent control program recommends soap. Or mothballs. Or dryer sheets. Or any type of repellent at all - repellents simply don't work on critters that eat the way mice do. They will taste anything and if they don't like it they don't eat it. They don't care about smells at all. Unless it smells like food. Not a single official rodent control reference lists any kind of effective repellent.

The only way to control a rodent infestation is through exclusion (keep them out in the first place), sanitation (don't give them access to food or shelter materials), and population control (once exclusion and sanitation are accomplished, kill the remaining pests).

 

I can attest to this first hand. I have a small 1 gallon plastic bucket I use to catch glycol when doing related projects on vehicles. It is about 9" deep. I inadvertently left about an inch in the bottom once and pushed it to a back wall. My garage is solid masonry and rodents can easily climb the walls. The next day I found several expired rodents in the bucket. They can get in by climbing the wall but can't climb back out the plastic bucket. Not a safe thing to try if you have pets or children though.

 

No Pets or Children at my house...

My solution, get a 16ft x 8 ft oval kiddie pool, drive the car into the center of it, blow up the pool, then add antifreeze into the pool.

That will show those pesty rodents..... Hmmmm........ Thats cheaper than dealing with any damage they may do to the car....

 

Wow, this is more common than I thought.

I haven't had a problem yet (knocks on wood)

 

Ok, Was talking to a friend of mine that dealt with many animal problems and in a humainly way. His suggestion was to take an old AM radio and put it on some talk station with semi-low volume and place it under/near/in your car. Be sure you can hear the radio. He says this will keep out all animals and rodents from the area. When they hear the radio, they will think there is people in there and they will just stay out.

I'm not sure how viable this solution is, but at this point i am will to give it a try. Just thought i would pass this on in case someone else has ever heard this before?

 

Hey Tod. I've never heard of that but it might work. I would recommend picking up some of that anti insect spray you can get from ace and spray it where the nest was and all around that area. It's odorless and shouldn't do any damage to your car.
See you soon,
Daniel

 

A while back the alarm on my Elise kept going off in the garage, and I couldn't figure out why. One night it started going off and I went out to see a mouse perched on the rear end... so I took him for a nice drive up and down a local twisty road. I don't think he liked the ride very much, because the alarm stopped going off after that and I never saw him again

 

It is only humane if they don't play Oprah or Limbaugh.

 

Haha that was funny... good luck Tod!

 

The mice won't care if a radio is on. They can get used to almost anything except being regularly physically disturbed. Like promptly removing any hint of the beginning of a nest every day they try to build one. Or driving the car every day. Even then it is not a sure-fire solution.

A few years ago I forgot to close the garage door one night. The next day 3 raccoons were living up in the rafters. Talk about vile creatures... Anyway, we tried bright lights, loud radio, yelling, raising and lowering the garage doors over and over and over again. They wouldn't leave. I even tried poking them with a really long cane pole. That didn't do anything.

The next night we left the garage door open and at dusk the raccoons waddled out. Then we closed up the garage tight and put ammonia-soaked rags at all the openings to try and keep them from wanting to come back..