The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk Mouse Pooh, and good ideas on eradication

Working on Frankentruck and after spending a whole afternoon with a paint scraper, shop vac, bleach, and a pressure washer, I managed to remove most of the offending black stuff. It appears that the good looking stock seat was torn apart by the little fur-covered vermin to turn the cab into mouse-ville. The head liner even had a full nest.

So onto my main question. Anyone have a good idea for keeping the smell out vs taking the cab to the sandblaster? I thought of wire-brushing and POR 15'ing the inside of the cab, however I am thinking a few blasts with the sandblaster followed by epoxy and color would be the fastest.

Any suggestions from the BTDT crowd?

Scott

Blast, epoxy primer, and color. My vote.

Thanks, that is the direction I was leaning.

Scott

Seems like Rodents are the bain of 'bolters' lives at the moment!
Squirrels,rats,mice and possums! (O.K. I know possum's aren't rodents.)But hey!They're critters all the same.
I'm with TooMany on this one...you've got to kill off all the germs!
I used POR-15 inside my cab on the areas that wont be seen and I would imagine it would seal in any offending smells!
I you,however scrub the cab out well you should get rid of the smell.Try and vacuum as much of it out as possible (be inventive for the nooks and crannys!) Persvere you'll get there! Good Luck! OH! Mask and gloves are mandatory on this one! Jock.

cheack the windshield posts there probly stuffed to

Good idea on the windshield posts. Any idea on getting in there?

Scott

Scott, I didn't have any pest problems, but I ran a air hose down my windshield posts.

You could always have a mouse fur headliner.....

Nah, too much work.

My possums didn't leave any smell behind after I removed there mess with an ice scraper.

If you are cleaning mouse droppings, or any other vermin droppings from any enclosed area WEAR a dust mask! I encountered deer mice droppings in an old plane wreck I was stripping down and ended up in the hospital very near to death.

Ditto on the mask etc. We have a whole process at my work for handling mouse dropping because of an airborn disease called Hantavirus which will kill you if you're not careful. The public insurer in Manitoba will write off a vehicle for mouse droppings because of the liability and how hard it is to completely rid the vehicle of the evidence.

True story on the mouse virus. A mother of 2 died after cleaning her pantry about 20 miles from me. Hantavirus was the diognosis.

Knowing what nasty stuff the vermin pooh is and the Hantavirus issues, I did soak everything down with bleach first and cleaned outside with gloves, mask, and safety glasses. I now have to look at how to clean out the window pillars. does anyone know if these go straight thru from top to bottom?

I might just hose the pillars out with bleach, then phosphoric acid and then POR15 and then expanding foam. The bleach kills the germs, the phosphoric acid etches the metal, the POR15 seals everything it coats, and the expanding foam will fill in the rest.

Scott

Scott, I'm pretty sure that they go from top to bottom on my truck. As for cleaning out the pillars, someone said that they used an air hose.

Yes they go straight through. Your cab light wire runs through it.

Cool

I think I will run the pressure washer wand thru there followed by the air hose. 2000 psi does a good job on mouse pooh, loose paint, grease and wood... (long story)

I will most likely do this on Saturday if it ever stops raining.

Scott

Hi Scott... I agree with all of the above advice. One point tho'
Don't use the expanding foam! I used this years ago in a VW bug I restored. BAD IDEA! , It retains moisture in the box sections,not good! If anything use a good quality rustproofer. I'm using Waxoyl (after all the paintwork is done!) As the name suggests it's a wax based product and 'creeps into seams and voids etc.
Jock.

watch your eyes i got a bad eye infection cleaning my truck out and came real close to loseing one i was waring glasses but the rust and dirt found its way in

I second jockbolter50's advice. If the expanding foam gets wet, it will fall apart and mold.

I use industrial urethane foam, not the cheap home-improvement stuff. The stuff I am using is common use on heavy equipment for sealing panels and cabletrays.

However first - need to get all the pooh out.

Scott