Mice in cab- not from HVAC air entrance

I live out of my truck for 3++ weeks every summer as I take a hiking/climbing trip to CO. I never had any mice issues until ~5 years ago. Had some mice in the cab, covered the HVAC air entrance with a piece of expanded metal wired in place. The openings are diamond shaped, say, .3x.8", small enough that my pinky fingernail would only go halfway in. This turned out to be too large as I still got a few mice occasionally. I added a layer of wire mesh on top, .25" square spacing between wires, no more mice for 3+ years- until this year. Now those F'ers are back. I've verified that everything is tight and in place over the HVAC entrance. It is. You can't drop a #2 pencil thru it. And the cabin filter is undisturbed- when they were getting in that way, you could see that it had been moved or bent down. I covered the air outlet at the rear of the cab with the same wire mesh.

Everything is stock under the hood and all of the firewall penetrations look new. Obviously I can't see the brake pedal rod as it's hidden. One nite after dark I had a friend stick her head under the dash, no interior lights, and shined a light around all of the penetrations. She said she didn't see any light at all inside under the dash. I also included the steering column with my light check.

The only thing I have left is the antenna cable penetration. I am going to investigate this soon. Anyone have any pictures of the location? I assume under the dash at the RH side, maybe behind the kick panel? And I believe this is the general area they're entering from. When it started, I put traps on both floorboards and only had a mouse in the RH floorboard. Then I put three traps across on the RH side floorboard, under the dash on the angled section of the floorboard: one near the trans tunnel, one centered, and one on the far RH near the kick panel. Only getting mice in the trap near the kick panel.

The rubber wire covers for the door electrical (between doors and body) are all in place and look new so that's not it.

I thought maybe the main wire harness underhood, but I closed the rubber tube tightly around the harness with a wire tie, near the accordian boot at the firewall, and that's not it either.

All I can think of is the antenna penetration.

I've tried every mouse deterring scent possible, and nothing works, or at least not 100%, so I'm looking for the actual solution to the problem- finding and fixing the entry point. My friend has an Outback, camps next to me, food in the car, and has NEVER had a mouse inside- Outbacks are evidently impenetrable to mice. I killed 5+ in the Tacoma cab in about two weeks. Edit- she has all sorts of signs underhood from mice- footprints in the dust everywhere. They're trying on her car also but can't get in.

Not that it matters, but they're only active after dark and in the traps in the morning. Toss the dead mouse, reset trap, leave the truck in the same spot for 8 hrs during the day and never a mouse.

Anyway, that was long, but I wanted it to be thorough. Any ideas besides a cat, dog, coyote are welcome and appreciated! Thanks! I am home now and will investigate the antenna penetration when I get caught up with life.

edit- I also thought maybe thru the evaporator drain, so I crossed the opening with two small metal wires forming a cross over the opening. This cut the opening down into fourths. Nope.

 

Rodents dont like Irish Spring soap. Put some pieces around in corners of the cab. Also maybe check on the back of the cab wall, in the middle. Theres a vent that they could have gotten in through

 

Rodents don't like the smell of coyote urine- nobody does LOL. That used to work but they figured it out. Same with Tabasco, peppermint oil, moth balls....

All of the food is in a cooler or plastic containers so they can't get at the food but don't know that.

The opening at the back of the cab has the 1/4" wire mesh over it. Thanks anyway!

 

There are also some rubber plugs throughout the cab. Maybe they chewed through these?

 

The grommet is up behind the wheel well liner. Essentially a few inches away from the cowl side entrance. The antenna grommet is like 1” diameter or so, and they’d have to chew it up pretty good to get in that way.

The continuous food in the truck is certainly attracting them but i think what I would do is buy a mouse bait station and some bait and set it out by the inside of the front tire or something when parked for periods of time and let them go after that than whatever is in the truck. I laid out traps for like 2 weeks straight and probably killed 2 mice every day and there would still be one that would make its way into my kitchen once a week. I started putting out bait stations and quality bait I bought from domyown.com and not Home Depot, and haven’t seen them back but catch them dead outside every so often.

 

IDK if you tried this but seems like an option anyway

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/cabin-air-intake-screen-mod.566441/

 

Mice are relentless. At some camp spots I'll see them running around the truck by the dozens by nightfall, poking their stupid mouse heads through the wheels, emerging atop the tires, running along the bumpers... physics don't apply to mice apparently. Found a dead one in the air filter once. Not the cabin one, that's meshed off--the engine air filter. Climbed in the snorkel apparently.

Oh and of course, they're crawling over my feet at the campfire. Not much you can do there except tuck your pants into your socks and hope they don't eat your engine wiring by morning. It can be fun to stomp one to death from time to time, but it takes a lot of stomping and you look like an idiot the whole time.

I agree you should be able to keep them out of the cab, at least with the doors closed. One once leapt from the slider in through the open door, right in front me, but otherwise I've never had one get into the cab.

In addition to the antenna wire... I'd check lower door seals for evidence of them squeezing by. Also you could pull the carpet back from the kick panels, there are plugs over the body mounts, maybe they could get in there? They can push their way through really small openings in the first place, and with rubber seals and such, you might not be able to see the hole.

Baits have their place, but in my opinion, not on public lands, and may well be illegal... fuck the mice, but you will be killing things up the food chain.

I also agree, rodent deterrent smells don't work, but I still spray the engine valley with peppermint spray and holy water from time to time.

I'd like to blame it on messy/careless campers training generations of these mice to target cars, because the super-aggressive mice only happen at designated campsites in popular areas where dispersed camping isn't allowed. But who knows. The important thing is blaming it on some generic group of people, based solely on speculation, and letting that hatred fester and grow in your heart. You know what, I bet it's those low-life Subaru people!




Oh, I forgot. This shows the antenna grommet, albeit from the outside of the truck. On the left:



And here's some of those plugs in the floorboard:

 

did you check the hvac vents on the rear of the cab? Plenty of room for them to chew through there. Check behind your rear seats.

 

They make a sonic and flashing led system to deter critters under hood.
Moth balls deter too but smell bad and you will notice them - used for bears too ha ha if you get bigger critters around.

 

Whereabouts?

 

Thanks. Access cabs have these vents as well?

 

Yes. The vents are used for cab through ventilation when recirc mode is off. All vehicles have them in some form.

 

Mice can get through a 1/4" crack.

 

Can you access them from inside the truck?

 

Thanks for the info on the antenna.

For fun, I set out mouse traps outside a few times. What happens is that I catch a mouse when I'm sleeping and then a coyote carries the trap and the mouse off during the nite LOL.

 

Yes, it's screened. That's buried in my original post.

 

Thanks for the antenna pic and your mouse commiseration LOL.

I haven't had time to check the antenna, but if that's not it I'm going to have a hard time figuring this out. I hit a deer 10+ years ago and the entire front end was painted, so the antenna wire was certainly disturbed. But there was a long time between that and this issue. So who knows.

I will also pull the console- it's a 5 spd. Not sure if I mentioned this in my OP. I had it out last summer to R&R the transmission, and everything looked new as far as boots, etc.

The cowl HVAC entrance is majorly screened off. And I verified it's all good. They are not getting in thru that.

Mice have gone insane in the last ~5 years in CO- it's like they've increased in population by 50X each year. Which is probably possible. Like you said, after dark I'm walking around outside the truck and they're running past me and under the truck to figure out how to get in. I have all sorts of mouse foot prints underhood. And it looks like they've been break-dancing on the top of my hood LOL.

What is killing me is that my Outback friend has NEVER had ONE mouse in her car, and she stores food in it (that's not an option), and she's leaving the doors open after dark for several minutes at a time. She's 1% as cautious as me and no issues.

I need to figure this out as I was losing my mind this trip. I will update in a week or so when it stops raining and I catch up with life.

Edit- I am camping at dispersed campsites. But they are also fairly popular, so there's someone at that site probably 25% of the summer evenings. I haven't had any issues at remote and unpopular 4WD trailheads

 

Yes. At least for the access cab- which has one vent at the center. You need to remove the panel at the rear of the cab.

 

Maybe she's also 90% less observant and her car is infested too?