How to Keep Mice Out of Your Car
Short & Sweet
Purpose:
Mice and other rodents can chew through various items in your car and cause damage or even an accident.
Symptoms of mice in your car:
1. Chewed wires
2. Droppings
3. Foul odors
4. Nests made of various items such as twigs, pine needles, bottle caps and anything else they can get their little hands on!
Care & Repair:
Ways to keep mice out of your car:
1. Use traps.
2. 100% pure peppermint oil.
Ways to prevent a mice from making your car it’s home:
1. Move the car away from its normal parking spot.
2. Put a dryer sheet over your engine or cabin air filter, this often prevents rodents from coming back. NOTE: Some cars do not have a cabin air filter.
3. Thoroughly clean and vacuum the car.
4. To help prevent an infestation in a stored vehicle, make sure it is started up and run for at least 15 minutes once a month.
5. Place another critter’s hair or even some of your own hair inside your engine.
Cost: $0 – $20
Purpose
No one wants rodents in their car. Besides being gross, these little creatures can cost you money by ruining essential parts on yengineour car. They will chew through wires and anything else they can sink their teeth into. Some people have had to pay over a $1,000 to repair the damage made by a rodent. One could also decide to surprise you while you are driving and cause an accident.
Symptoms
Symptoms of a mice in your car:
1. Chewed wires
2. Droppings
3. Foul odors
4. Nests made of various items such as twigs, pine needles, bottle caps and anything else they can get their little hands on!
Care & Repair
Here are some ways to keep mice out of your car:
1. Use traps. They can be found at hardware stores and superstores. If you feel bad about using a traditional trap and want a more organic approach, use a product such as Havahart that catches the mice, but doesn’t harm them. You will have to find a place to put the rodents and make sure that place is far away from your car.
2. 100% pure peppermint oil. This is also known to drive already nested critters away without harming them. Put a few drops of oil on cotton balls and place them where you think the critters are dwelling.
If you don’t currently have a rodent, but would like to prevent one or you just got rid of one and would like to keep it’s friends out, here are some ways to do that.
1. Move the car away from its normal parking spot. This makes is harder for the critters to find their nest.
2. Put a dryer sheet over your air filter, this often prevents rodents from coming back.
3. Thoroughly clean and vacuum the car. If there aren’t any goodies to munch on they will have one less reason to be there.
4. To help prevent an infestation in a stored vehicle, make sure it is started up and run for at least 15 minutes once a month. The smell of a recently used vehicle is a signal to the rodents to keep away.
5. Place another critter’s hair or even some of your own hair inside your engine. The smell can sometimes make critters think someone else is already residing in there, keeping them away.
Cost
Luckily, this isn’t going to break the bank. Peppermint oil is about $2 – $3 per ounce and you are only going to use a few drops. Traditional mouse traps are only about $1 per trap and dryer sheets are usually on hand. If you choose to use Havahart, a live mouse trap, they run a little less than $20. You could try every method and probably keep it to $20. Hopefully the first method you try will work though!
