[gtobird]

Kingbuzzo mentions Fabric Softener sheets. I completely agree. When I lived in Seattle, my neighborhood had a significant rat problem, but it wasn't because the neighborhood was a dump. On the contrary, it was a very nice area, but there were lots of homes going up and it distrubed the rodents, so they would look for new homes constantly. In Seattle, it never got hot or cold for long enough to kill off much of anything. I left my truck parked in the driveway every night and in the cooler months, rats would climb into the engine bay at night. My wife read about fabric softener sheets and tied them all over my engine bay. It kept the rats out of my truck.

Now living in Wisconsin, it's the usual ocassional mouse problem. I use a combination of things. I plug the high frequency noise makers into the garage outlets, regular old snap mouse traps that I bait with peanut butter or the tasty rat poison and have them covered with 2 x 4 shells with only a small hole for the mice to get in. My dogs can't get to the traps and bait, but you still have to be careful with poison as a pet could find a dead mouse that ate it and in turn make themselves sick or even die from it. I also use the black maze traps with bait and then of course the fabric softener sheets inside my cars. Sounds like overkill, but hey, I haven't had any of my cars chewed on in a long time. I also found that placement of mouse traps is crucial. Best to place them along a wall and of course close to where they come in if you have an idea of where that is.

Also, take the time to look for sources of food both in an outside of where you keep your car. I had a birdfeeder and squirrels would climb in and then drop seed on the ground, which in turn attracted rodents. I also had grass seed inside a bag on a shelf in my garage long ago. I must have fed the whole family with that.

Thanks for posting this question as I haven't done these preventative measures yet this year. Time to get er done!

Oh, by the way, I've used the commercially available cinnamon spray to get bats to stop hanging in my front porch eaves at night. Worked pretty good and it is really for mice and rats.

Old Joe