<VV> mice and corvairs

[Vairtec Corporation]

Ray "Grymm" Rodriguez wrote:

> what options are available to me to protect my cars from mice moving in?
>   

Others have said "cat."  While having a cat in the garage is reasonably 
effective, it has its own concerns.  For example, a friend's cat decided 
to pee on the car cover.  That demolished a 1-foot diameter portion of 
the paint (not to mention that the car cover became stinky trash).

Another friend's cat adopted the mice as playthings.  We could, 
literally, watch the cat and the mice play on the shop floor, then, when 
they became bored they would go their separate ways.  I suggested that 
perhaps he was feeding the cat too well, such that it had no need to 
view the mice as potential meals.

There have been recipes posted for various poison concoctions, notably 
the Portland Cement-and-flour mix, but I have found these to be little 
more than containers of powder that I accidentally kick over at the 
worst possible moment.  Same with the commercially-available dry bait 
traps.  Commercially available sticky traps are excellent at becoming 
stuck to your shoe when you walk near one without paying close attention.

Some people have suggested placing Bounce dryer sheets throughout the 
car.  These have the advantage of emitting an odor pleasant to us 
people, but I think that it is insufficiently offensive to mice.  I 
found a mouse nest ON one of the dryer sheets.

I finally had success with conventional moth balls, and lots of 'em.  
The only negative side effect is that my Corvairs (and my camper) 
positively reek of moth balls, even when the containers are removed so 
that the car can be driven.  But I consider this a reasonable price to 
pay for what has proven to be a fail-safe mouse deterrent.  I still find 
mice throughout the barn, but never any in the cars since I started 
putting moth balls in them when parked.

Actually, the moth ball odor is not very apparent to me but it drives my 
wife up the wall.  However, even she will admit that it is better than 
mice damage, and better than, in her view, the presence of actual mice.  
At car shows, where the moth ball containers have been out of the car 
for several hours and the car has had its windows down for the same 
several hours, people will occasionally walk past the car and comment, 
"Phew!  Moth balls!"  These people smell better than I do (GGG!)

--Bob Marlow

PS:  Never put any mice bait or poison, be it commercially available or 
home-brewed, where pets or children might get at it.