Mice Issue
 

Hello.

My 1964 Lemans was stored over the Wisconsin winter, outside in a field. :(
Now I have the following items to take care of.

1. The trunk had water in it. Thanks to a previous post on this forum. Due to the water, there was rust in the trunk that needed to be addressed. I am almost done with addressing the trunk.

2. Next Project (Mice). There were mice droppings in the inside of the car as well as the trunk. In addition to the trunk, I plan on taking out the seats and replacing the carpet.

Question #1. As far as the seats (front and back) any suggestions on that. Should I spray the underneath and/or backside of the upholstery to help with the smell. I've read that maybe 1/2 part vinegar and 1/2 part water would do the trick.

Question #2. Thinking about other popular spots for mice, what is the diagram / layout of the ducts / vents. No a/c here. I am wondering if I should take all related vents apart to inspect and clean as needed. Does anybody have any prior experience when it comes to that or have any other ideas before I start taking everything apart.

And lastly, is there anything else I should check at all regarding the mice? Seems like all my lighting, radio and other power functions all are working. So hopefully no wire chewing occurred.

Thank you.

Are you sure they are gone? They get everywhere and anywhere! When I dismantled my '64, there was evidence under the seats, behind the dash and above the headliner where the dome light wire harness runs through the structural sheet metal.! They eat the insulation off the wire, and you may not have problems until they short to ground or corrode. Inspect as much as you are able.

The ONLY thing I have found that WILL get rid of mice in an enclosed area is Grandpa Gus’ mice repellent.

thank you for the replies.

are the mice gone? well i moved the car to an enclosed storage.
set a few traps underneath the car as well as in the car.
nothing over the last 2 weeks. no additional droppings as well that i can see.

as far as the headliner, oh boy, w/o taking that apart, look for signs of smell and/or spots on the liner?

as far as the ducts / vents, i was told if i turn up the fan on high, see if anything material comes out of the vents, chewed up insulation, etc... would that work, or would you recommend taking some vents aparts to inspect, etc..

i haven't inspected underneath the dash yet, seen one small piece of insulation on the floorboard, but other than that, nothing.

One of the very favorite places mice love to nest is inside the heater box. They love the squirrel cage. They will pack it full of firewall insulation and produce generations of tiny offspring through the winter. If not too difficult, I would pull the blower motor and clean/checkout that area.

thanks..

so the heater core and the heater blower?

does the fender need to come off to get to the removal of the heater blower?

The air cleaner is a popular winter vacation destination also .

After spending $2000 dollars to replace a chewed on under hood harness in my new Cadillac I use Grandpa Gus's pouches and some 'sticky traps'. Caught a few shortly thereafter and haven't seen any activity in the last 6 months since.

I put the poison pellets in the trunk and that is a good witness for any mice activity. Soon to be inactivity.

I've posted links here before about using this non poisonous homemade rat and mouse killer. Here's a link to a 3 year follow up with one of the original posters of the mouse killer videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLvpNIO84hA

I first stumbled across it on You tube a couple years ago and tried it. I live in a 120 YO farmhouse and we have a stone foundation that has all types of voids and ways for rodents to get into the house. At that time I had a mouse problem and figured it wouldn't hurt to try it. I used some Planters peanut jars with a couple 1 inch holes drilled about an inch and a half from the bottom opposite each other.

The first night I placed it in the kitchen there was baking soda and muffin mix all around the jars. The second day much less powder around the jars, and the activity was less and less each day. Within a week there was no more bait being scattered, nor any evidence of traffic in the jars. The evidence of droppings stopped completely. It flat out works because rodents love wheat based bait. The baking soda causes gas internally when it mixes with their stomach acid, their digestive tract can't release the gas fast enough, their digestive tract ruptures, and they bleed internally.

If you made up a few jars and left them in and around the car in the fall, it should kill them all through the winter. I hope this helps someone save their car from the mess that rodents make, and the expense and work of cleaning it up in the spring. Bonus is no poison in the carcass in case a dog or cat eats the leftovers, safe around kids too..............:thumbup:

A buddy bought a vehicle in Vegas, it had a rat in it. Brought it back to Michigan. :)

Heater: Using a bore scope, you may be able to ck the cabin side with minimal duct removal. The engine bay side will require a lot more work, at least the inner fender removal.
Headliner: If no staining, I wouldn't pull it unless a smell remains and only as a last resort.

My '64 followed me thru 3 moves. When I finally pulled the back seat, this is what I found...RATFINK!

The only problem with poisons or other things like baking soda that kill the mice internally after a day or 2... is that they go back to their hiding places & die, that can be in walls of your house or nooks & crannies or areas in a car that dont have very good access... they die in there & start to stink which requires removal or waiting a long time for the smell to go away.

Best to use a traditional trap so they can be disposed of or make one of the DIY ones with a bucket of water & some type of bait on a board that pivots when they go for the bait then fall into the water & cant get out... theres vids of those traps on youtube, can kill 20+ in 1 day if you have that big of an infestation like on farms etc.

When I was a young teenager I caught a squirrel and put him in a big box in my room in the basement, had a friend come over and let him lift the lid to look at it... the little bast*rd jumped out across the room (those buggers can almost fly) and got into the closet that had access to the space between the basement ceiling & upstairs floor where HVAC ducting runs... had to call a professional rodent guy to get it out... he said you dont want it to chew a electric wire or get stuck and die up there as it will stink the entire house for months & cause a real problem. He put a live trap in the room with a trail of apple pieces to catch it, luckily got it within 24 hrs.

Be careful with using things to kill the mice/rats after they eat it, traps are best to get rid of them.

We found that mice like Irish Spring soap

We found (for some of the reasons already mentioned) traditional traps work the best and are most humane. Use peanut butter and stick it in the corner near the wall. You'll know when you need to set more traps.

The above strategy turned a problem into a non issue.

Get a cat. That’s the best.

I have 3 of them, and I have mice, so much for cats being the best.

Also cats can't get inside of cars, but they can walk around on the paint making scratches.

Yep. When I took by blower motor out of a `71 Lemans with factory air, there was 1 1/2 hole chewed through the plastic squirrel cage. No nest.

Fix any places mice can get in, most people don’t ever walk around their place and look for places they get in. Also adjust your doors to close all the way down. Put a weather strip,or place what’s there. Most people don’t ever adjust or lube their gage doors either.

thank you for all the feedback.
i think I'll be purchasing a few things.
the scope for sure as I don't want to rip apart everything if i dont have to.

question - where would you shop for replacement carpet. i would like to get as close to original as possible. not sure about the 80/20 loop pile? etc...

Owls houses around the property, don’t see mice

The Irish Spring soap that I put in my cars were well gnawed!

My 65 GTO have "mouse houses" in the kick panels!

The plastic Tom Cat and JAWS traps work better for mew than the old wooden Victors.

I treat to many rat bait ingestion in dogs to like it out. And the newer stronger synthetic warfarin(works on bleeding) are so strong another animal eating a mouse rat can get poisoned. Here only exterminators can by those. At least they have an antidote. The one that causes brain swelling does not!

7 years now; no meeses.

I already said I live in an old farmhouse with a stone foundation, it has voids all through it where the stones don't fit perfectly and the original masons didn't get mortar on each and every stone. I guess I should tear the stone out and repoint and re mortar all of it right?

Maybe lift the walls and flatten the top row of stones where the plate rests on the round stone, that would be a pretty significant undertaking. You're never going to make a farmhouse rodent proof. Some years we get zero mice, some years we get a lot of mice. The former owners and myself tried to get as many gaps taken care of as we could, but it would take the better part of the rest of my life to seal the house perfectly.

I guess if you've never been around an old farmhouse that was built with everything they found around the site, you'd not have any idea of how much time and money it would take to make everything plumb, square, and level.

Way off of topic we were talking about keeping mice out of cars that were left in a field over a winter...............:focus:

If a mouse dies in a car it isn't going to smell as bad as a urine soaked mouse house does. In 2 weeks the body dries up and the smell abates. Mouse houses keep stinking for years after they've been abandoned. All the proponents of traps have never had a mouse that won't touch a trap, or lick the bait off the trigger and never spring the trap. For my money I want the mouse dead as fast as possible with all his family too.

Most of the commonly available rodent poisons are now useless because the rodents developed a tolerance for the main ingredient ( warfarin). The newer stuff works in some cases but not all. I’ve started using One Bite here at the farm. Seems to work well, but you have to be careful with it; it WILL kill dogs and cats if they ingest it. There is no antidote for the toxic ingredients of One Bite.

We also have fake owls on 8 foot posts, and real owls, kestrels, ospreys, hawks, bald eagles, plus 27 free range chickens that kill mice around the property. There are plenty of coyotes, and racoons around our property. A creek flows along my backyard so there are snakes. Our neighbors have dozens of cats, plus our own 3 cats, no shortage of natural predators. I don't use traditional poison because of all the wildlife and pets that could come into contact with a poisoned carcass. Wanna try again?

I live in a 120 YO farm house in farm country, sometimes we have mice, and sometimes we have no visible signs of them, depends on how many offspring they have, severe weather etc.

Back to the OPs problem, mice in a car. I used to use peppermint oil as a repellant to keep mice out of our camper, never saw any evidence when I used that. Problem is that you have to refresh it periodically.