Mice in my truck!! What the ...

Because the nasty beast did about $100 damage to my truck, this pics Just for You!

 

Be happy he didn't chew a wiring harness...

 

Now blow him up with the explosives

 

Damn that’s crazy.

 

Gross. Congrats on wacking the rat.

 

Sorry to go off topic but earlier this year l was tearing a wall out in the garage and was greeted to this nastiness! That first picture is hundreds and hundreds of dead mice skeletons, fur and some less decomposed bodies. After cleaning all that mess out you can see they were even chewing the 2x4's.

 

Thats no bueno.

 

Burn-down the house!!!!

 

Thankfully it's a detached garage! The previous owner was a hoarder and had shit piled in there from floor to ceiling.

 

I know what you mean, my Neighbor keeps her garage packed floor-to-ceiling with Holiday decorations she never uses. I confirmed she has Mice one night when I left my Motorcycle parked in her garage overnight (I needed the space) and the next morning had small foot prints all over it!

 

I had something chew thru the fuel line of a Dodge Dakota. After it was replaced, I was told to spray a whole jug of Pine-Sol underneath and around the truck.

 

Oh crap, that would make me nervous after seeing those footprints, thankfully it was only overnight!

 

3rd gen Tacomas do not use soy wire insulation.

 

I've had them get under the hood of our Honda Fit twice and chew through wires. Fortunately it was a fairly easy fix both times. But a couple of months ago I found a nest with 6 babies under the seat of my Honda ATV. They had done major damage to the wiring. A complete wiring harness from Honda was $1200, not including labor to install it. They would have had to remove every body panel to do it. I took it to a mechanic who kept it a couple of weeks working on splicing the wires back together. He worked on my ATV during down time while waiting on parts to be delivered etc. but it was still labor intensive. He ended up charging $300 labor which was really a bargain considering.

 

I live in the very north-east corner of WA. state .. Almost ID. (In the boonies) .... Mice are a constant prob. Even in an enclosed garage or shop. Those lil' MF's find ways in that you'd never guess.
When I bought my new Taco in Sept. it sat for a week in the shop .. Everything buttoned up .. I popped the hood for some reason and was horrified to find a nest-in-progress up under the master cylinder going. I knocked it all out (Thankfully no damage to anything) and started looking for a solution. I was NOT gonna have meeces chewing up my brand new rig.
I've had to fix stuff countless times on a 94' F-250 - 95' Bronco - 95' Dodge B2500 van - 00' Caravan - 06' Forester ...
The worst was the Dodge van.. It runs fine, but wouldn't start one day after being parked for a couple months in the winter. I finally had to pull the 'dog-house' which I didn't wanna do cuz it's a real PITA, but the only way to 'get to' the engine .. I found 4 spark-plugs wires chewed through and most important the coil wire chewed through. Fixed that and then later found that the vent-flaps for the heater/ac weren't working .. Found the tiny plastic vacuum tubing eaten up as well .. Got that fixed.
Had to replace all the plug wires on the F-250 once ... Most of them all where they plug into the dist. cap ... Like the mice where just sitting there dining like at a Golden Corral buffet...
Anyway, for my new truck, I bought a couple bottles of this stuff called 'Rodent Defense' .. It's basically some mix of mint oils - white pepper - cinnamon - and some other stuff that mice find repulsive... And so far so good. The instructions don't really say how often to apply it, but I've hosed down the engine compartment twice so far (So about once a month) and so far, so good.
It's not really cheap either .. I think it was $20.00 for a 32 oz bottle (And I bought two), but if it saves me headaches and not having brand-new stuff chewed up .. worth it.

 

Holy SHIT!!!!! Man, and I thought I had a problem... That's just crazy ...
Side note: I read an article this morning (NY Post??) that said NYC .. Especially Central Park .. Has been getting overrun by gigantic rats. There were a few pics and these 'rats' ... They were as big as well-fed fat rabbits.

 

I see stuff like that all the time in my job as a remodeling contractor. They love to chew the insulation off of electrical wires where they pass through a stud or wall plate. I see a lot of bare wires usually with an electrocuted mouse nearby.

For vehicles, I think that oil undercoating is also a pretty good mouse repellant. I can only assume that they don't like crawling through the stuff.

 

You have no idea how happy I was to tear that wall out after that!

 

Yikes. If you don't eliminate them at the source (assuming the source isn't your truck), they'll keep coming back. I live in the middle of Los Angeles...and have had rat issues for years. In one of my cars, the rats chewed through the main wiring harness. I was lucky that I had just left my house and wasn't on the freeway when I lost all power. That cost over two thousand dollars (covered by Homeowners insurance btw) to replace. I tracked the problem to my neighbors' house. On the side next to my driveway (about 6 feet away), he has a fruit-bearing bush and his water heater. Rats eat the fruit, nest in his water heater enclosure and apparently play in my cars. He refuses to do anything about it so my only solution is to park on the street. The rats don't seem to want to venture out that far.