You should do this promptly. I hope I'm wrong but if the critters have done further damage....

Haven't posted for a while, and hope you all are doing well. Anyway, don't drive my Boxster much anymore, but what a beautiful day to take the car out for a drive, so I hop in and notice these helicopter maple leaf thingies. Pick one up and the seed is missing from it. Dang rodents!! What I don't get is how they get in the car as the roof and windows are always closed in the garage. I do notice a lot of chipmunks around our house, but I guess it could be any type of rodent. Help!

Right now I threw about 4 bars of Irish Spring soap in the cabin/trunks. Car seems to run fine and I can't see any damage or nests in the car anywhere. Anything else I should do?...

have gnawed their way into the cabin. They must have gotten in through something plastic/rubber since they do not chew metal. A common path is through the heater/AC ducting.

Thanks Marc. I'll have to check the car more thoroughly sometime. Hope the irish spring works. lol

you could be looking at an expensive repair. The couple of incidents to which I have been an observer to the car owners ended up having to file a claim against their homeowners insurance to cover the expense of getting the cars repaired. The sooner you know what you are facing, and just to be clear the damage may not be severe at all -- in the other cases the CEL came on and the engine was running poorly which is what prompted the owners to bring the cars in -- but at least you know.

Drive the car more.

I like that solution Stefan! Unfortunately, the car only sees about a few hundred miles a year now.

a suitable nesting area is high. All it might take is a car sitting a few days unused. Even if the car was just left sitting overnight, while the creatures might not set up housekeeping they could visit the car and gnaw on things, scrape carpet pile off the carpet for nesting material.

My thinking is the only way to ensure critters stay out of the car is to be very aggressive in keeping their population down to as close to zero as possible. If there are no critters around, they obviously won't be getting into the car. And the only sure way to keep the population down is with traps.

And even if the trap catch falls off one can't relax his guard. All it can take to reform the hazard would be for a nearby shed or wood pile be torn down or removed, a vacate lot be developed for housing or some kind of construction. I remember years ago in San Jose in a duplex where I lived I never had any problems then suddenly the place was overrun with roof rats. I could hear them at night slamming their way out the doggie door in the back door of the garage. What had happened was some old houses about a block away were being torn down along with their old detached garages, sheds, and in a few cases very old stacks of firewood. I talked to my neighbor who was a housing contractor and he advised me to put out traps. Bait them with a bit of peanut butter smeared on the trigger and put the trap on top of the washer and dryer. The enameled surface was slick so the things couldn't jump back. In just a day or two I had caught a couple and that was that.

Thx Marc. Upon inspection of my garage door area, I noticed a spot where they were getting in- apparently the rodent chewed thru a corner of the garage door seal on the lower side of the door. I installed metal rodent guards there and haven't seen any activity since. Hope it stays that way.

place the water pipes for the water heater went through the sheet rock. And any gaps around where the heater vents went through the sheet rock. I made sure all the vents/screen over/in the ports through the foundation walls were intact and had no holes or gaps. Ditto the screen vents under the roof eaves too.

'course, steel wool won't work for every thing so what you did with the garage door was the right thing to do.

Essentially you want to make the house/garage a fortress impenetrable to rodents or other creatures. A friend ignored the broken screens that covered the holes through the foundation walls and ended up with a nice collection of feral cats living under her house. Took some time to get rid of them. Have to (humane) trap them and make sure all are gone (and there are no litters of kittens remaining) before sealing up the foundation.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/07/2014 11:09AM by MarcW. (view changes)

Cats are best protection against rodents & even other pests.

to where we lived, then walk over the the neighbor's house on the other side of where we lived. On the driveway of the neighbor's house the cat started to play with the mouse but the mouse managed to get away from the cat and scurry under a slight gap between the garage door and the driveway.

The only way to be sure is with traps. If there are any mice around or if there are no mice around, you know from the traps. With a cat that operates often times during the night or at other times and out of your sight, you can't know if the cat is catching any mice. Nor can you know how the cat is disposing of them. Not every hunt is successful. And as I have observed, even if the cat catches something it doesn't necessarily mean the cat kills what it caught.

Grant

gee-lenahan-at-gee-mail-dot-com
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/09/2014 08:29AM by grant. (view changes)

used to present me the mouse and seek my approval. You can be sure they are dead that way.

While cats are seen as the solution to mice they are not 100% reliable. In fact a cat around might drive the mice to the car as the car offers very good protection against a cat. A cat can push its way through the usual stuff that garages collect, boxes, and such. OTOH the car of course offers plenty of resistance to the cat and planty of escape routes to the mouse. If the mouse makes it to the car he's safe. And I'm sure he's going to remember the car.

So far so good on the rodent guards installed. You can kinda see them in the pic below...they're a white metal plate in the lower right corner attached to the garage door seal. That's where the rodent chewed through the seal to gain entry. They won't be able to chew through the metal plate...