More on Mice... Prius Prime

with all the mice infested prius, it's hard to believe the prime is even more attractive

 

Wow, sorry to hear about a write-off from mice.

After having a couple of mice die in my venting, I have placed mouse traps all around the car in my carport. Both snap traps and rolling log traps:

After an initial period of daily catches, now it's just 1-2 mice per month. Sometimes a bird ends up in the snap traps which makes me sad, I am thinking about removing them and installing an electric shock mesh:

 

Mesh the entrances. I’ve done the engine bay cabin and engine air intakes, but dragging my heels on the hatch vents; better get on it.

 

The problem is not just with the Prius, it';s that toyota and others went to new wires with soy in the insulation. Thats like junk food to mice and other rodents. Thats what attracts them is the insulation.

 

Sorry to hear about the total loss of your PP. I have read about the rodent problem but so far on my three Prius, I have not seen any evidence of rodent intrusion inside or engine bay of the car. We do have plenty of rodents around our house. But they are mostly field mice, not a house mouse. I have a feeling that parking the car outside on our driveway is better than keeping it inside of the garage/barn where most of the mouse infestation evidence has been found. With plenty of feral cats around our house, the mice population seems to be well controlled. Thought about using rodent repellent, but never tried.

 

Really enjoyed those do it yourself mouse traps. However, parking your car on a high voltage electric mesh could have unintended consequences.

 

Could you explain which consequences?

 

Messing up the cars electronics? Zapping someone’s pet? Child?

 

Could you imagine a small child, maybe your neighbor's, touching an 8000V electrical grid when she came over to look at your horses? Imagine the consequences if her father also happens to be an attorney.

 

It's not the high voltage that kills, though, but the current. And these types of electric fence controllers use a capacitor which can deliver only short term and minimal current. In the country I grew up in, electric fences are everywhere along walking/country trails and I did get my share of zaps as a kid until I learned to spot the signs of an electric fence. No doubt, though, sue happy US attorneys would still find a way to file for emotional damages.

 

And get a spare.

 

That statement was over a year ago. Today on my 4th Prius (third Prius Prime), I found the very first evidence of mice intrusion into the engine bay of my 10 mo old 2021 PP. A hole in the hood insulation material and what appeared to be a nesting site as well as a number of droppings all over the engine bay. No other major damage that I can see, and the car is running fine. But I just went out to a hardware store and got boxes of rodent repellents. Will see if it stops their invasion.

BTW, those rodent repellent smells great to humans. If it really works, then rather than buying expensive premade scent packets or spray, I may just buy an essential oil bulk bottle of peppermint oil, spearmint oil, rosemary oil, garlic oil, and balsam fir oil... and mix them up to make my own blend of concoction. Should be way cheaper for the amount I can make it up.

 

Well, the mouse repellent does not seem to repel mice. I placed a total of 6 packets of repellent all over the engine compartment. but 4 of them were chewed up. Apparently, mice thought it was something edible. It seems that mice were just as active as before, if not more active, in the engine compartment.


I saw more damage to the cabin air filter too. Removed the insulator on the hood that mice chewed a hole through it. They were definitely getting comfortable there. A mound of loose insulation fibers mixed with white material apparently carried from the cabin filter was made into a nest.


A packet of repellent I pushed through the hole onto the insulator did not seem to deter the mouse activity.



For now, I managed to cover the rear air vent holes (both sides) with hardwire cloth but they were not likely to be the active entrances. I also covered the top of the cabin air filter with hardwire cloth. It may be better to stop the entry into the cabin at the opening on the metal body part under the wiper cowl, but accessing it was not as easy as the rear panels, so I decided to just cover the top of the cabin filter casing for now. I will check again tomorrow to see if they come back.

 

Geez that sucks.

 

Fresh Cab is a repellent used buy antique car enthusiasts to keep their vehicles safe from rodents.

How to Use Fresh Cab® - What It Is & How It Works | EarthKind

It is what I use when storing our FW trailer over the winter. Give it a try.

Double the number of packets since they are squatters now and do not want to leave.


iPhone ?

 

Thanks, but I am sorry to report that its effectiveness is as questionable as other brand repellents I have used so far. Yep, that was another repellent I picked up at a local hardware store and placed along with another repellent "Mouse Magic" in the photo on comment #14. The Mouse Magic is peppermint/spearmint scent-based, but Fresh Cab is balsam fir scent-based. I placed both of them in the engine compartments, but hardly no effect repelling the mice. But, unlike the Mouse Magic packet, the Fresh Cab packet was not nibbled. So, it may be less "attractive" to my resident mice. But still, it is hardly doing its job of "repelling" the mice.





I also ordered "TomCat" Rodent Repellent Spray, another peppermint-based product, from Amazon. I got it yesterday and used it to liberally spray around and on the car, especially on tires and tire well where the mice are most likely climbing up to the car, as well as in many spots in the engine compartment. I just checked the car after parking overnight.

And, there are still signs of mouse activity (droppings and pees) in the engine compartment and on the cabin filter which is now protected by the hardware cloth.



The hardware cloth protected the cabin filter still showing the mouse droppings, but no obvious damage to the filter.

 

Once they have squatted, they need to be bait trapped outside the vehicle. Give them a reason to leave (more desirable food) and make sure they cannot return (trap them). Then the repellent will discourage others from entering.

BTW: have you eliminated the original food and scent that encouraged them to enter in the first place?

They follow and limit their movement to paths with their scent due to poor vision. Food is the only way to temp them to go off their establishment paths. Repellents make it more difficult to pick up their scent, but if well established, repellent is not enough. Therefore repellent is a proactive procedure most effective prior to infestation and their scented paths being established. Once infested, trap outside the vehicle or building.

Peanut butter is very effective as a bait.

BTW: avoid poisons because you then have no control on where they will perish and decay (smell).

Another consideration is to light up the inside of the vehicle. They avoid that condition.


iPhone ?

 

Yeah, repellent seems to work better as a preventative measure than for active eradication. I am almost sure that there are no mice staying in my car during the day. Currently, two sites they started building nests, one on top of the cabin filter and one on top of the hood insulation are off-limit to them. There is no mouse food in the car. But I do not want to set up a trap in the vehicle or very near it because that would attract other mice to the car.

I did set glue traps inside of the garage but no catch so far. The garage is currently being used as a barn and there are plenty of food sources and nesting sites and materials the mice can use thus infestation may have started here and spread outside to the car. Being an old detached garage building filled with backyard mini-farm materials, it is almost impossible to completely seal off this building or get rid of mice quickly.

I am going to park my car in a different place tonight and see if that will stop the nightly visitors.