The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk Mice Repellent

How do owners deal with mice (rodent)?
What control and rodent control are used including names of product.

Mice Control In the headliner I put 24 oz. of mothballs above my homemade cardboard headliner in the mesh bag they came in. When you get in you'll smell these till you get moving,really helped what seemed like the whole cab. That truck is a beater thaat is stored in mouseville (barn) is rusty so no way to hold them out.

The best mouse repellent has 4 legs and a fur coat. It's called a "cat". A 5 gallon bucket with some fermenting grain in about 6 inches of water and a couple of yardsticks propped up to the rim will collect dozens of mice, especially if a soda can on a wire is added for them to walk onto. D-con and other poison baits end up causing rotting mouse carcasses to stink up the place in some very hard to reach locations. There are several very entertaining you tube videos of the bucket traps in action.
Jerry

Or you can buy a bunch of common old style Victor mouse traps, screw them onto bits and scraps of lumber (to keep the mice from dragging them away), bait them all with Milky Way candy cut into small bits, set them against walls and check them every couple of days. These never wear out and mice will keep getting caught as long as you remove the dead ones. There are also some corn gluten mice control products that dehydrate them and wreck their digestive system...but as Jerry said, they'll go somewhere to die. Avoid any product that claims to make them thirsty so they'll leave in search of water. It doesn't work like that.

Just like some humans, mice love old trucks and cotton batting for an original seat.

My buddy had a cabin on Placid Lake here in MT. We helped him open it up in spring. He had left a ketchup bottle on the table and the mice were able to somehow open the cap and climb in for the ketchup. Of course, it was slippery and they couldn't get out leaving a bottle full of dead mice.

Maybe ketchup bottles in the cab will work but be sure to loosen the cap.

I've heard that they don't like mint.
I'm thinking about planting mint around my place in Spokane and at our family properties in Montana.
I do think I see more issues in Spokane with the cat dragging into the house her 'live toys', then letting them go when she gets bored with them.
I do have to add that the old family poison over the years is called 'Bar Bait' which dehydrates the animal. I've cleaned up many petrified dried out corpse of a rodent over the years. Less juicy muck.

Be careful where you plant Mint as it will take over like Bamboo...hard to get rid of at a later date and takes over the flower bed like a weed.

Mike B

Peanut butter also works good for baiting mouse traps.

+1 on the peanut butter.

Don't use poison. The dying rodent might be eaten by a bird of prey such as an owl.

x2 on what Mike B said. A neighbor and I spent months trying to kill bamboo somebody had planted in our backyards. It had spread everywhere and you can't kill it by spraying it with something like Roundup. You have to dig it up. Mint is just as bad although if you have a field of it, I'm told it can be a cash crop.

Cut up a bar of Irish spring bath soap, put bits under the seats etc and under cabinets etc in my work shop!

I have found the best mice repellent is to drive that truck regularly...Ymmv

Walter's and Jerry's suggestions are the best ones. I've always owned at least one cat and I drive my vehicles all the time. Never had a pest problem in any vehicle I've ever owned.

I bought a 1959 3800 flatbed truck that had apparently been the doghouse for the seller's big redbone coon hound for some time. Halfway through the 50 mile trip home, my legs started to itch- - - -BAD! I discovered that they were covered from the knees down with hundreds of fleas! I stopped at the next Dollar General store I saw, and bought a change of clothes and two cans of RAID!. I hosed the cab down thoroughly, and did a strip tease down to my skivvies in the parking lot. Then I doused myself with the rest of the RAID!, threw my flea-infested jeans and socks into the dumpster, and continued the drive home much more comfortably!
Jerry

I cut up 3 bars in my 10’x12’ she’d and it still gets infested in the winter. I find a dead one or two in the spring but still have live ones. Even now and it’s June. Time for Deacon. And yes, when we had one or two cats we did not have a mouse problem. Just like the freedom these days to go on vacation and not worry about animals.

Here are some "humane" mouse traps.

Here is the 5 gallon bucket and peanut-butter-lure mouse trap/killer.. I have used one in my garage over the winter for many years.

This was last weeks present brought in by the cat. She became bored with her toy, and let it go. Luckily I squashed it between the wall and the latest classic parts delivery box before it became a permanent resident inside.
Caution. Not for the squeamish.
I have nightmares of waking up at night with a mouse in the bed, or worse.... staring me down.
I also have sticky traps throughout the house.

JonG I'll tell you what will flag em down,rolled oats and portland cement set a pan in your old truck!!

Do they eat the Portland cement?

i'm guessing they eat the grain all the while sucking in the cement as it mixes wth their bodily fluids... and it mixes and creates a very heavy scenario.
Briliant!

Gord&Fran I never poison them don't want to smell them crawled off in a bad place,much better in the bucket dump in the cornfied.Sometimes get the whole family.

Had the mouse problem in our vacation trailer for years till a neighbor said to put a strip of LED lights underneath. I did that and haven't had mouse problems since. Also we have an owl that roosts on some tall 20 ft. poles. Sometimes we watch as she swoops down into the grass and rises with a mouse. If they were only big enough to eat the marmots...

I use a trash can with antifreeze at the bottom. It does not evaporate like water does and preserves the body so it stinks less.

In the fall I use poison after the birds fly south.

dougs You said name products Jif peanut butter on a water bottle mounted on coat hanger across 5 gal. bucket 2 inches of wateris enough. Melt holes in cap and bottom,set it by junk so they can get to the rim. Takes 10 minutes to make,if they are in there you'll get em. Might deepen the water if chipmunks. fix

ChipO More on the portland cement mouse control please, Heard of it just don't want them to die in some impossible place,with bucket you can take em out. I guess you could say it's my main sport in cold weather. So glad I built this house tight enough to hold em out,they're thick here. fix

Had a mouse problem in our travel trailer. Found out they were climbing up the power cord (we keep the trailer powered up all the time it's not on the road. Someone told me to get clove oil & douse a cotton ball with it, put it in the porthole where the cord enters the trailer. That ended the problem--no more mice! On top of keeping the critters out, it would make the inside of the truck smell pretty darn good.

Not my suggestion, just guessed on the method.
I grew up in MT using a product called 'Bar Bait' especially in the grain shed and barns. It dehydrates them, so even if they get in somewhere inaccessible, they dry out and usually become petrified.
I've found the mummified remains under furniture not smelling anything at the time.

"Hedge Apples" work for me. Place in the four corners of your garage.

Cats are still the absolute best solution for all pests.

...except cats.

I use "Peasy".
My Siamese cat. He’ll play with them til all the play is gone, then take them outside,,,,,

Its called "Mousetrap Monday" on Youtube. Lots of good ideas on there

Fired up wife's V6 Buick and it shook running on three cylinders. Rodents had chewed the injector wires completely off on the rear bank. Googled and found modern wires are coated with a soy based plastic so yummy to critters. Was told to put dryer sheets like Bounce around under the hood. So far, so good. Never happened till I overfed the cat and she got fat and lazy.

Those first V6 Buicks shook like they were running on 3 cylinders when they were new.