The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk mouse house???

and before anybody screams it really is truck related. i live next to 300 acres and a 20 acre woods. in the winter months the mice and rats start looking for winter shelter. not that i blame them, but they sure can mess up upolstery and wiring. i was wondering if there is a good way to keep them out of a garage and or storage area SHORT of poision. in the winter i take my 2 year old grandson into the garage to play and ride his tricycle. anybody with experiance with a 2 year old knows they are lightening fast when it come to getting into stuff.

in the trucks i have seen in the field i have seen the damage rodents can do. this is not 1 more job i want to do.

thanks in advance.

The best product I have seen is the "Rat Zapper". I used to sell them in my store. They are a plastic box with a metal floor that the little guys walk into and get shocked. Very effective and safe.

My brother uses some gadget in his outbuilding that emits a sonic signal that drives them crazy, so they stay away. Kind of like an annoying noise that is beyond human hearing. His dogs don't like it in there either.

Get a cat. Get it fixed so it doesn't lose focus on its job. And be sure to keep up with it's shots. Best rodent prevention there is.

Gawd...I can't believe I would even say this....how about a cat?

That's coming from a dog man......

(Geez Bill...ya beat me to it...to slow on the send key!!)

Some folks around here use moth crystals and put them under, or behind, the seat of a stored vehicle. You could put some in cans that are able to be closed 'kid proof'. Puncture them with holes and leave them in secluded spots in the garage, as well as in the vehicle. Seems to work. You won't have carcasses to deal with as the rodents just stay away.

yes make sure if you get a cat that you have it fixed especialy if its a female they can make as big a mess as rodents if they happen to use your seats as a birthing room. YUCK!

I like the cat idea. We live on a couple of forested acres, next to an 80 acre forested greenspace.

My neighbor has one cat.

I've seen rodents crawl off trucks I dragged home, but only twice in ten years have I seen one in the house, and there is no evidence any of those who caught a ride here have survived to reproduce.

On second thought, ask your neighbor to get a cat. I never feed the thing or worry about a litter box, but the rodent control still covers my place just fine.

I have seen the sonic ones in use in our preschool. They also keep the cats from [censored] in the sandbox etc. They are the clean way to go.

Cats work great. My cats are declawed but man they sure catch them. I have 2 the one that tires the mouse out and then a fat 1 that kills it. Dead mice bodies all over though. They kill it and leave it. I fell sorry for the mouse though because my cats give it a heart attack. Also the boxes that you plug into the wall that sets of the noise that drives them crazy works really well to. I have only found a mouse once in the last 2 years in our garage, and it was in the dog food container. So these 3 products work great, 2 cats and a few of those boxes that make the noise.

I've got 9 cats and no mice.

Don't feed it! Let the mice.

3 cats, they live in one garage. All are fixed, all are well fed, and all love to eat mice anyway. Besides them, we use a combination of mothballs and those ultrasonic thingies. I really, really hate mice... :mad:

My cats have been banned from the garage since one of them jumped onto the trunk lid of my freshly painted 68 Olds Convertible and left a set of claw scratch marks all the way off the back as it slid off.

Also, to add a bit to the "pail of water trap".. use peanut butter as bait, the Mice can not resist it.

This winter, I'm keeping my bass boat out side due to my son's truck restoration.

All of my friends and my boat dealer said to put a hand full moth balls on a plastic plate in several locations in the boat. They also said to put down a bunch of mouse traps in all of the compartments before placing the cover on the boat for the winter. I hope this helps.

Do you have any idea how hard it is to pull all of those moth's balls off???

I am surprised that nobody has mentioned the trap made with a pail with water in the bottom. I think it involves a pop tin that rotates when they take the bait, they fall in and drown. No poison, just an emptying job to be done.

The poison route is really dangerous. They take the poison pellets and store them all over the place. Also I have seen the sonic devices used in industry but I can't speak for their success.

This post is ok, keeping rodents in check and out of old trucks is a real problem .

A friend has a cabin on a lake in the mountains. Mice got the lid off a ketchup bottle and jumped in. They couldn't get out though. How about a bunch of ketchup bottles?

ask your neighbor,,,,,,,how about some target practice with a .22....Fred

I use the old fashioned traps, baited w/peanut butter in the shop, mothballs in the trucks. My boy knows not to mess w/them, put them in hard to reach areas also. Brian

When using the pail [better mouse trap] trick instead of using water use a couple of inches of antifreeze so if you live in the cold climate of the north it won't freeze and if you are not there for a long period of time it won't smell.

and it will probably kill the rats and everything else that may drink it,,,,,

I hate cats. They use any loose material for a litter box. They climb on things (trucks) and if not declawed will scratch the paint. I don't like poison because the mice will eat it and die somewhere inaccesible and smell up your truck. The mothballs are effective but it will take some time for the smell to go away. I've had good luck with the sticky traps. Effective and non poisonous.

First off Mighty Warrior they ain't going to be noooo mice with that German Shepard hooked to the garage! Second send the Grandson in first with a plastic bat and scare the H out of them. Third you are so dang gone big and ugly no sane mouse is going to go close to your garage. (NO I AM NOT FLAMING!!!)

Cats, love cats have 3 in the house and Juzee the wonder dog. Whats neat the dog catches the mice out in the field before they get to the garage.

popcorn The Truth is Out There (Big Giant Head of Wabash has spoken wise words)

My son-in-law uses those fabric softener sheets that the wife puts in the clothes dryer. He puts a number of them in his camper- they smell a lot better than mothballs, and he says the mice hate them just as much. I put some in my stuff last fall, and they seemed to work.