Keeping Mice/Rats out of engine bay.

Just got the report on why my wives beetle died and it was rats chewing on the wiring in the car. Did a quick sweep and all of my cars that sit outside have mice in them. I have blasted them out with the pressure washer but I would like to keep them from coming back. 

So what keeps them away. I don;t mind killing them but we have a very large population of hawks around the house and I don;t want to move the poison up the food chain. ALso killing them with my 22lr is not going to happen inside of city limits. 

Keep the engine running?

Cats?

We vacuumed a mouse nest off the intake of the charger and they have chewed up the fuzzy battery covers on my truck.  In for ideas, also not going to poison them because of the amount of raptors and vultures around 

How about covering the underbody openings to the engine bay with wire mesh? It would be a pain to do maintenance, but air and dirt could still pass thru. Trying to completely seal the engine bay will be a challenge, since mice/rats can get thru some pretty small gaps.

Go online and search honda rat tape 

Peppermint oil is supposed to keep them away. 

I use it on rags to keep them out of the snowmobiles, campers, etc. Rewet rags occasionally to keep it effective  

Seems to work well enough (no mice), and doesn’t leave dead mice full of poison around. 

I have had good results with Fresh Cab Repellant (contains peppermint oil) for keeping them out, but it might not work if they are already established and nested.

My most recently purchased car came with mice. After moving it in the garage I used a shop vac to clean up what I thought were empty nests. A couple days later I found a bunch of baby mice living in my shop vac.

I have Fresh Cab in the car now under the dash and in the engine compartment. I'm pretty sure that Caesar has taken care of the last mouse that had migrated from the car to the garage.

The Maine Coon's keep the garage and house clean. Our newest girl is a mouser and at almost 24lb's she is a killing machine.  But a show cat not a outdoor mouser. 

AAZD I am going to buy that and the honda tape and see what it does. If not I am going to go adopt the nastiest barn cat I can find and he can kill them all. 

One of my neighbours got lucky and had rodent damage that cost $300. The dealer reccomended  moth balls on the wheels because they climb the wheel then into the engine bay. The mothballs go in old socks, and when you park the socks go on the wheels.

Irish Spring bar soap. Put a bunch in, on, and around your cars, on a piece of plastic - baggie, garbage bag, sheet, etc. 

Smells better than moth balls, and still works. 

RealMiniNoMore said:

Irish Spring bar soap. Put a bunch in, on, and around your cars, on a piece of plastic - baggie, garbage bag, sheet, etc. 

Smells better than moth balls, and still works. 

This.  I’ve been showering with Irish Spring for about 35 years now and have not had mice living on me at any time.

Any idea for snap trap bait ?

My mice and rats are too high class for Peanut Butter !

plus there is a nice big avocado tree in the front yard so they always have a choice :)

In reply to californiamilleghia :

Nutella

When i park my motorglider, I put a 10” tall hoop of aluminum flashing around each wheel to keep the nosey buggers from climbing in.  

Cut  25” long piece and clip it to itself with binder clips.  PITA for a car, but it’s worked so far.

As others have suggested - soap. I had a '65 Belvedere that had been parked for about 20 years, it had a bar of soap under the intake manifold  and no rodent damage.

914Driver said:

When i park my motorglider, I put a 10” tall hoop of aluminum flashing around each wheel to keep the nosey buggers from climbing in.  

Cut  25” long piece and clip it to itself with binder clips.  PITA for a car, but it’s worked so far.

All I'm thinking of now is the aircraft mechanics squawk list that's been floating around the internet since forever.

It's possible that Irish Spring soap, Bounce dryer sheets, or mothballs may work for a very limited period of time but none of them are real solutions, the smell wears off in a couple weeks and then they do no good.  I've seen the soap bars with mice teeth marks in them and nests made from chewed up dryer sheets.  Mothballs were an effective solution decades ago but the ingredients were changed.

The absence of mice isn't necessarily proof that any of these things are actually repelling them, it just means no mice have moved in.

Moth balls?

But all I really have is:

I've left Irish Spring soap in my car during the off season,  and months later when we opened the doors, boy did it smell.
Granted, I had a bar under the hood, a bar on the console, and the last bar back in the hatch area.

After leaving the windows open for a couple days, the smell was gone.

Well, now that we know how to get rats and mice out from underhood, how do we keep the cat out from under the hood?

Mr_Asa said:

Well, now that we know how to get rats and mice out from underhood, how do we keep the cat out from under the hood?

 

  

Move the mice to the back yard. *nods sagely*

I got in my 2022 Grand Cherokee a few months ago and all of the dash lights came on. It turned out a mouse had chewed through the wiring harness underneath somewhere. The dealership fixed it under warranty for some reason and installed a rodent deterrent device which is a little box that sits on top of the battery and emits a high-pitched squeal at random intervals. I had to pay for that but I didn't want it to happen again so I paid the $250. When I turn the car in next march I plan to remove it and put it in my bus.