Deterring mice from the BS (nesting on cabin air filter)

[coopny]

So updating... not sure anybody asked, but I figure this might prove useful at some point.

The peppermint spray particularly on the cabin air filter seems to help... if applied daily. It still attempts nesting. It has chewed the ends of the air filter. I believe it may be coming up top, but there's no obvious ingress points to the windshield cowling. Another possibility is that there may be another entry point on the "clean air" side below the air filter, perhaps a drain pipe, that the mouse can have access to.

There's no obvious ingress to the vehicle itself - no shredded paper towels or napkins for nesting material. Blacklight was unresponsive in the engine bay or the vehicle itself. Obviously was for the cabin air filter due to the presence of urine.

Finally bought a fiber optic inspection tool at the home depot to inspect the fan and housing below the air filter. I'm not sure if it's material that was on top of the filter that fell when it slid down, or if the mouse was nesting down there:

Either way, signs of the mouse/mice being present below the air filter are present. At least one chewed on the plastic fan blade:

My next move is to try to see if the mouse is coming from the top side and falling down. I plan to cut a piece of cardboard to snugly fit the air filter housing and then lay glue traps atop it.

Hopefully none of you have to experience what I'm experiencing with mouse intrusion into the BS, but perhaps this information will be helpful to somebody, hence why I'm still posting about it.

 

[CoryB20]

Humane mousetrap that kills instantly? How about one of these?

Just kidding, of course.

But good luck with the mouse problem. We had a few things chewed on but it seems a cat has taken up residence in our area, based on the cat prints on my tractor, and will hopefully eliminate any mice around.

 

[Major Kong]

bronco snoring softly in the background
array of peanut butter laced boobytraps
snap to kill traps
live traps for *interrogation* purposes
next morning
licked clean
traps untriggered
creepy AF
how the hell does one lick the bait clean without tripping device
okay
reset with fresh peanut butter
licked clean - unsprung
indian burial grounds or something going on here
search engine
evidently it's a thing
solution
hot glue kibble to trap
will report back later

 

[Major Kong]

hot glue kibble one tiny nibble
status - goner
looks like sparkplug slept through the whole thing
night night sparkplug

 

[Mark S.]

You need to get medieval: Mount the mouse heads on spikes and leave in plain view.

 

[Bill G]

Congrats, Major. Keep trapping, ‘cause like roaches, when you see one there’s lots more to come. Found one in my garage — had to do in about 30 before I finally got mama who was birthing them faster than I could kill ‘em, but that’s a story for another day.

 

[coopny]

So an update on the war on mice: A combination of trapping and baiting has killed three mice in total. We are unsure if there is still an issue. One mouse died outside another vehicle in the driveway (bait/poison), one died underneath the passenger seat of a vehicle (bait/poison), one died in a fancypants trap:

(The trap has been named Bill Murray in tribute to how the groundhog drove his character nuts in Caddyshack.)

For now, I am spraying the engine bay and the windshield cowling daily with peppermint oil spray, without further signs of rodent intrusion.

For elimination of odor: obvious the first step would be removal of any obvious contaminants (contaminated cabin air filter, nesting material). The next is an ozone generator, with the car HVAC fans running full speed, windows shut, recirculate air on. I would note most advice says do this for thirty minutes. The BS seems to time out at idle after about 15-20 minutes automatically, I assume this is some sort of steering wheel/driver activity prompt that I can't answer (ozone is great at eliminating odors and easily outwardly ventilated when done by opening windows/moonroof, but can't sit in the car while it's going because it's a lung irritant.) This eliminated odors that were in the vehicle cabin and that may have been on material in between the cabin air filter and air intake.

I am of mixed minds on removing the bait stations. On one hand I'd rather them die without being poisoned (both for the suffering of the mice and the potential that upstream predators eat them). On the other hand, if I remove the bait and the trap is not a compelling enough alternative food source, they may start re-nesting on the cabin air filter again...

 

[coopny]

Another update (if anybody cares)...

Thus far my BS has avoided further evident mouse intrusion, however even with running an ozone generator with max fan speed and recirculation on, there's slight lingering odor. I am guessing there is still some nesting material between the windshield cowling and the corridor leading to the cabin air filter. I have been able to avoid parking near the woods where I think the mice are coming from, but winter will require me to move the car.

The Honda Accord on the other hand... we did take apart much of the windshield, and there was a metric %$&#ton of nesting material in there. There was also nesting material by the spare tire in the trunk. Removed with nitrile gloves on, sprayed disinfectant, re-sealed, ozoned. Coarse grit sanding pads have been placed over likely entry points to deter re-entry.(I cannot identify any obvious entry points in the engine bay of the BS, or any indications of rodent activity in the engine bay or any part of the vehicle interior).

The smart mouse trap has claimed four mice thus far, with three of those in the last week. It seems that merely automatically feeding bait above the mechanism isn't enough, and prebaiting on the stand so the mice get to taste the nut butter and are jonesing for more is the optimal approach. The fact that the trap alerts me when the mice are being humanely killed has given me some insight (all of the mice have died between 5AM and 7AM; colder nights seem to increase their hunger.) The trap is waterproof and did fine with the three inches of torrential rain (which will likely increase mouse activity, as existing nests are likely flooded out).

A nice plus is that the trap automatically re-arms, although this seems to not matter as it seems that I'm only getting one mouse a day tops anyways, because the mice are hungry enough to eat all the prebait before going into the trap mechanism. Also because the trap is at an angle and automatically resets, the mouse drops into the base of the stand, and I can dispose of it without handling the trap. The trap is ungodly expensive, but I do take solace in that I'm killing the mice in the most humane way possible (versus a trap like the rinnetraps lid, where you're either trying to dump live mice somewhere else, or subjecting them to drowning if you make it a kill trap).

I am probably going to look for some further persistent mint smells to try to increase deterrence but even peppermint oil sprayed at the windshield cowling vents and liberally around the engine bay is not enough to completely deter them.

 

[DadofTim]

 

[coopny]

I like Shawn's channel and found out about him from a wirecutter article on the best mousetraps. I actually bought my Goodnature A24 trap after watching his review on it.

The long story short is - yes. The mice seem to be deterred by peppermint oil spray. But only if it's DIRECTLY in an area where they're going to interact. In essence, if I spray my engine bay but not my cabin air filter daily, they may still enter. If I don't spray daily, they will reenter after 24 hours.

Even the instructions of the rodent repellent mint oil I am using clearly state:
For best results, use it as a preventative measure before rodents have nested.

So deterrence with peppermint oil is easier than trying to get them to stop...

I'm not giving up on the peppermint oil, but I'm at a point where a ~7AM daily ritual now is to pop the hood of the BS and spray it with that. And for the Accord, with the existence of nesting material in the vents under the windshield cowling and in the trunk, they prioritized getting back to their nest over their dislike of peppermint smell in areas leading up to it...

 

[DadofTim]

The video shows a Victor dispenser that drips the oil for up to a month.

 

[coopny]

The video shows a Victor dispenser that drips the oil for up to a month.

Ah wonderful. Perhaps I should have actually watched the video first

Thanks for your recommendation. Definitely willing to give that a shot.

 

[coopny]

Smell in the car has been less, but not totally absent. The cabin air filter after a change three weeks ago shows no further evidence of intrusion there.

Visiting a relative's house for New Year's weekend and park in the garage (it was open, inclement weather to unload)... within minutes the smell of mouse urine (ammonia) in the garage. Not within the car. Move the car to park it outside and leave garage door open for 3min, smell is gone and doesn't return within garage.

I figure they have to have a nest somewhere more exterior to the vehicle. Nothing is visible within the engine bay, although I'm going to poke around with my fiber optic tool.

My guess is they have to be near something hot on the undercarriage... car was nice and warm after an 150+ mile drive.

Trying my best to end the madness ?

 

[coopny]

Car hasn't gotten hot enough (NY winters...) to determine if they're nesting in the undercarriage of the car. Use of the fiber optic tool in the engine bay doesn't show any evidence of nesting material or rodent activity. The engine bay also lacks the odor of urine. The cabin air filter remains undisturbed lately.

I did use the fiber optic camera to confirm a theory: the most likely source of ingress to the cabin air filter. These two holes go directly below the windshield cowling and are plenty big for mice to get into. If you park your BS BL outside, I would strongly consider covering these holes with metal mesh (which will still permit drainage, but the mice won't want to chew) so you might avoid the escapades I have experienced, at least to the extent of them nesting directly on the cabin air filter:

 

[Black Rob]

I don’t know about the sport, but the full size broncos have a lot of wiring running behind the fender. Recent story on bronco6g…

https://www.bronco6g.com/forum/threads/squirrel-damage-wiring.86522/

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