Effing Mice

When we first moved into our house in the boonies, we had a real bad mouse problem. After about 3 years of traps & poisoning the little ratons, there are only a couple around outside, but none in the house, shed or garage. They never chewed on our car's wiring, but our crawl space stunk for a LONG time after I got rid of them.

 

AUDI,BMW,ME/BE/VW Use soy bean based wiring.. Nice idea right ??

 

Nope. They got just a little bit of the top layer and it's NBD to me.

 

Gain dryer sheets. Use them in every car somewhere in the hood. Same thing around the outside of the camper. Seems to work and cheap!

 

I haven’t read all the input here on this, but….. rumor is that some mfg use a a soy based plastic for insulation.
Had a 2014 Sierra that the chipmunks made a nest in the fresh air fan box. The fan chewed the crap out of them. Clean up was a task, used expanded metal mesh to fabricate a screen. Mice have nearly destroyed my lawn tractor several times.

 

Some swear that works, but i can say i've tried it more than once with different brands, and the mice must laugh at it....they've chewed the dryer sheets into little pieces, and lined their nests with them. The only thing those little bastards understand is a broken neck.

 

Same here for mice and chipmunks. Found loading up these plastic jawz's brand chipmunk/rat traps with peanut butter, and sun flower seeds is deadly. I trapped over a 100 mice, and over 60 chipmunks this past summer to fall.

 

.

 

Hey Folks,

Joined the House of Eff-ing Mouse today. Just took out my knock sensor harness and read as a P0237. Went to the dealer and it is not covered under warranty, but my usual mechanic isn’t available and I don’t have time to do it myself. Will probably keep the harness and gaskets on hand for next time just in case.

In case you were wondering, it’s $826.67 plus taxes and fees for that repair now.

Going to wire a sonic and strobe box I found on Amazon. $30 plus wiring it on the firewall.

TLDR:
Rat damage from P0237 is $830 and takes a day to fix at the dealer.

Thanks!
DenimDan

 

They don't work, not even the most expensive ones.
If it's a fix at all, it will be a exceedingly temporary one.

 

Ever tried it? 6,000 5 Star reviews.

 

I think I can fairly answer that question with yes, I have.

Between myself, my family, friends and neighbors, I think we've tried them all. Just about literally.
Every ultrasonic deterrent, to include the most expensive money can reasonably buy, every strobe light, mothball, dryer sheet, pure peppermint, eucalyptus and tea tree extracts, to mention a few deterrents.

If you're truly in a spot where the rodents are prolific, I've found nothing outside of the copious amounts of powdered cayenne pepper, combined with whatever your preferred choice of death might be, that will even begin to mitigate the damage.

Without trying to tally the entire neighborhood's total dollar figure in damages, I can tell you it's deep into the tens of thousands, not to include one late model Tundra that was eventually given up on and declared a total loss.

I think a lot of folks get nailed once, buy a deterrent and because they're not hit a second time, chalk it up to a successful purchase, when in fact it was simply coincidence.

 

A Pic for fun, taken a few days ago of the wife's 4Runner cabin filter.
Cayenne pepper, peppermint extract, as well as ultrasonic w/ strobes and snap traps were all fresh and in place.

Cabin filter had been replaced 30 days earlier, give or take, due to previous damage and monitored daily for 2 weeks.
The damage is so frequent, I stopped keeping pics a long time ago or I'd post more.

 

Indeed they do.
Used to keep free range chickens, but once they all witnessed the first one get brutally murdered by a hawk, I couldn't get the rest of them to leave the porch.
And, of course, they turn into zombies at night, so the truly nocturnal mouse and the laying hen never get to square off..

 

$830 from a dealer is a good price. Knock sensor, gaskets and DPI seals x6 and the fuel runner tube would cost ~$300 so $500 in labor isn't outrages. It is quite a task to repair.

 

This wasn't a club I wanted to be a part of, but the mouse forced my hand:

Random Over Weeks by Michael Rickerd, on Flickr

Random Over Weeks by Michael Rickerd, on Flickr

Repaired it myself in ~4 hours. New knock sensor harness was ~$40 from a local dealer.

Happened out in the desert near Vail, AZ. Drove the truck to Phoenix to complete the repair.

I leave the hood open basically every minute that the truck isn't being driven now.

 

The key is to have 2 or 3 different brand sonics running at the same time, say a Victor and a generic underhood. The bas-turds can get used to one sonic blast but 2 of them overlapping different frequencies is too much and they don't stick around long. Move them around too, switch them, add another and unplug one for a few days. No long term pattern is the way to go.

I have a victor blasting under the trucks and an Amazon off brand sitting on a shelf opposite the victor. When vehicles sit I clip an underhood onto the battery.




.

 

Time to get a cat!