How can one little mouse do this?

[Winger Ed.]

This is a real head scratcher.
A couple days ago, I saw the flash of a little field mouse run for cover when I went into the garage,
and my bag of wild bird seed had a hole in it and seeds scattered around it.
So, I set out a trap and caught the little demon.

We have a 2002 Ford Explorer that is kept inside the garage. Windows up, doors closed, as is the garage door.
Usually, it doesn't get driven more than once every week or so.
Today, I vacuumed out the inside and changed the oil.

Little specks of paper towel were all over the floor in the back seat scattered around my roll of paper towels.
The car is in almost the same condition as when we bought it almost new.
There's no way a mouse could get inside the passenger compartment......
but that has to be what chewed up the paper towels.

After I changed the oil, I checked the other stuff under the hood, including the air filter in its box.
A bunch of the exact same kind and size of paper towel shreds were inside the box/chamber for the air filter.

Over the years, I've seen rats & squirrels nest up in engine compartments-- but not get inside or in a air filter.
I don't see how the little critter could have made several trips back & forth inside the car, and inside the air filter.

Can field mice beam themselves around like the transporter on Star Trek?

[358429]

They can fit anywhere your fingertip can fit.

Mice do terrible things to trucks.

They climb on top of the fuel tank and eat the vapor lines and wiring that lead up to the intake manifold. I have replaced fuel pumps and fuel tanks and evap pipes and cannisters on Chevy express and ford transit vans after mice damaged the plastic.

That they smell the ethanol in the fuel is my theory.

Sometimes they munch the insulation from computer control wiring. Those are interesting to trouble shoot. It's enough of a re-occuring problem that I get

They urinate and defecate constantly while eating, so everywhere that has paper towel shreds on it may have been contaminated with parasites they carry.

It is unlikely there is only one mouse.
They lie in wait, hiding. What will they munch on next??

The best way to remove them is to bait the mice, then drown them with the bucket trap.

Get a 5 gallon bucket and drill two small holes opposite each other near the top.

Get a empty aluminum can, drill a hole in the bottom.

Thread a straighted wire through the holes in the bucket with the holes in the can.

Smear peanut butter on the can then lean a piece of wood against the bucket so they can access the bucket and bait can. Make it irresistible by sprinkling sunflower seeds on the ramp and can roller.

Test that it spins freely with fingertip pressure.

Add six inches water then dump it daily.

The birds gotta eat.

[imashooter2]

I have a 63 Impala street and strip car that spends most of the year stored. I have had mice in it twice over the last 45 years. First ones dug all the cotton ticking out of the front buckets and used it to build a nest under the front cowl trim. Fixing the seats was just money, but damned if that cowl trim isn’t a huge pain to get off… not to mention digging all the ticking out of the vent inlets. The second time they somehow got into the trunk and filled all the hat section reinforcements for the deck lid with cracked corn, birdseed, and insult to injury, the D-Con poison we put out just to make sure the cowl didn’t happen again. Hours with a shop vac and half inch plastic tube cleaning out that one.

So yes… mice can get inside a "sealed" garage and locked car no problem at all.

[Shawlerbrook]

Yes, if they can squeeze their skull through (1/4”) they are in.

[MrWolf]

I use the bucket trap and works great. I am trying the moth ball packs to see if that helps. Had a mouse come jumping out of my Kabota backhoe base that landed on my chest and scared me a bit that I missed stomping on it. They get everywhere and ruin everything, especially plastic hoses and such. Don't really se the damage till you need it. I started putting things in those big black totes with the yellow lids from Costco.

[Nazgul]

We have a farm that has tractors and mowers in several places. Wife keeps a bunch of cats that are half wild. No mice.

Don

[JSnover]

I don't have long-term results but over the summer I decided to do some redneck fumigating: In my shed (10'x10') I started hanging a rag from the overhead before I lock up, wetted with MEK. I'm not in there every day so I don't know how long it works.
No mice or insects since April.

[Petander]

Our 2002 Corolla has been at the repairmans garage for seven weeks now.

The front driving lights just disappeared one day, hi and low beam gone. I went through all the fuses, nothing wrong, but there was no current coming for the relaysI changed a couple but no... so I figured it's a professional job.

In seven weeks they have found no problems. And no lights. But there has been a mouse in the glove box, chewing some papers and plastic covers... and a cellphone charger cord has been exceptionally delicious. So they figured it's been the mouse, breaking some wires somewhere.

The repairman is building a new light circuit and a master switch now. It's an old but nice little well working 2 liter diesel city car that my wife likes. I sure hope the guys won't charge for an hour...

[country gent]

Back when the ammonia applicators had the tank on them when done with the corn we backed it in the old barn shut the doors around the tongue and pulled the rope. no more pigeons rats mice wood chucks

[Thundarstick]

This is why we spend so much on mouse poison and bucket traps on the farm! I keep bucket traps in my shed, tin cat traps, and glue traps all around my garage! They can do sooooo much damage!

I hear anywhere you can stick a pencil through, a mouse can get through! You've probably got more than one as well, they run in packs, or soon will!

[Mal Paso]

Mice can get through a half inch hole but auto manufacturers make it easier than that. The air vents for exhausting cabin air and let you close the door easily act just like little doggie doors they can push through.

[Hossfly]

Had a mouse get down into the squirrel cage fan of new car, shaking severely took it to dealership for warranty repair. Service guy said if we find a mouse in there will cost you money. Took back home and spent 1 hr watching videos on disassembly’s and 30 min under dash and found said mouse, he was spun to death in the fan. Lucky just before decomp.

[GL49]

Thanks for the reminder. It's getting colder outside and the mice will soon be looking for someplace warm. Time to set a couple traps in the garage.

My wife had one in her car, she'd set a couple traps every night on the floorboards. Caught four in the car, four outside the car before it was over. We don't think they all lived in the car, but knew how to get in. Set traps everywhere.
"Eewww....Poor things." "I don't want to touch it". She'd set 'em, I was appointed trapmaster.

[472x1B/A]

Yes mice CAN get anywhere. I have seen mice at the top of 195 foot grain legs. Just go to a grain elevator and listen to some of the stories that can be told by the guys that work there. You will be amazed.

[Froogal]

Do yourself a favor. Get some of those outdoor bait stations and load them up with "Havoc" bait chunks. Scatter a few more chunks of that bait in strategic places INSIDE the garage. The rats and mice have NO respect for your personal interests, so why be nice to them?

[SeabeeMan]

They'll get anywhere. My parents 08 Corolla has what we can only assume are a half dozen acorns rolling around above the headliner. Take a corner a little fast and they tumble around to the other side of the car.

My 68 Mustang had every single nook and cranny behind the headliner and trim panels packed with any and all imaginable nesting materials. I literally wore a respirator and tyvek suit pulling the interior out and spent days vacuuming out every single piece. Wiped it all down with bleach, sealed it up, painted and a whole new interior to get rid of the mouse smell.

[XDROB]

Honda came out with a cayenne 1 pepper electrical tape. To help combat mice chewing on wires on top of the fuel tanks. Which were not cheap to remove from the vehicles and replace all the hoses and wires that had been chewed. It seemed to work because we never got another vehicle back in that had been repaired with it. I also have been experimenting with a deck box that we keep swing cushions in. In the four corners I put a cotton ball soaked with peppermint oil and so far in 2 years we have not had one mice problem yet. As long as you like peppermint oil you're good to go. We also keep what is advertised as rat traps to get the mice and the garage the attic and the seller. They do not survive those.

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[dverna]

Last week had 8 of them in the bucket trap in the garage...need to check the one in the tractor shed.

[bedbugbilly]

Years ago, my in-laws came down from the UP (Michigan) and stayed a few days at our place on their way to Florida for the winter. While they were here, they bought a new car but kept the LTD they had. I was building a shop building at the time and had it all closed in, insulated and ceiling and wall covering son, ready to put the service in and with with surface conduit in the spring (I had another building I was working out of and decided to finish up the new shop when spring came). My father-in-law took it upon himself to invite himself to keep their LTD in the new shop building while they were gone for the winter and they would pick it up on their way home bak to the UP. What's a son-in-law to say? I agreed, but told him that he had to keep insurance on it and that it was at his own risk. (He and I did not have the best relationship through the years as he could be hard to get along with - opposite political views, etc.).''

When they came back in the spring, I helped him get the car out and he drove it for a few days while they stayed with us. I came home one day from a job and he started in on me that he had had to take the care to the local Ford agency as the air-conditioner didn't work. When the mechanic got into it, he discovered pink fiberglas insulation packed into the AC unit, the air cleaner housing and several other places - all as a result of mice. The crowning glory was when he said it was my fault and I should have to pay the bill at the Ford dealer. I kept my cool and calmly reminded him that he had invited himself to leave the care there for the winter and it was at "your own risk". My mother-in-law, who was a wonderful woman . . . stepped in and like many wives, had the final word with him that it was not my fault and that I would not be paying the bill.

Pesky mice can get in anywhere and they can sure do a lot of damage . . . I grew up on a farm and built a house on it and we lived in it for 45 years - darn mice would get in the bluebird houses and build nests . . a constant battle with them and especially when the hayfields got cut and weather started turning cooler. At times, De-Con and traps were our best friends . . . . and if you have one, you have more.

[DougGuy]

We have feral cats in the 'hood I feed one daily by my basement door, no mice, no snakes, no critters atall. They are all fixed so no cat fights at night either.