Mice in the Valve cover!

[CEppinger]

If you do not drive your truck every day, you may want to check under your valve cover!!



I was cleaning out some pine needles from under the hood and spotted some mice droppings, so I got out the shop vac and was giving the engine compartment a good going over. Well I decided to remove the plastic cosmetic valve cover and found a softball sized nest of what looked like green stuffing. I cleaned that out for now and reinstalled the valve cover.

 

[p-Bar]

I live in a rural area with lots of avocados and rats that live in the trees. popped open my hood and there was a rat sitting on the valve cover, chased him down to the top of the fuel tank and ran a stick above it to chase him out of their ,he took off running and my dog nabbed em'. These guys can do some serious damage to your wiring harness.

 

[WhiteSheep]

Rodents can indeed be a problem. It seems the mice in my neighborhood like Dodge/Chrysler hood insulation. Some has been eaten away on both my 1998 Jeep GC and my 2004 Dodge. They haven't bothered my wife's Volkswagan. The mice never got to the wires. I guess the insulation is sacrificial. I keep my garage baited all the time now and haven't lost any more insulation for a couple of years.

 

[BigPapa]

My Mom & Dad had a PT Cruiser and a mouse problem in their garage so they put some poison out. Daddy went to check the oil a couple of days later and the mice had moved all the poison from the little boxes on the floor up into the engine compartment. It was in the spark plug holes, the upper shock mounts, anywhere it would sit. They didn't do any damage, though.



Scott

 

[cojhl2]

BigPappd, was it the last thing the mice ever did. I am always concerned about mice around my shop. Have a number of vehicles in it.



Someone told me once to not use mouse poison as it "attracts" the mice where they ordinarily would not be.



Has anyone used that dryer no kling stuff? does it work?



How about moth balls, does that work.

 

[BigPapa]

cojhl2,



Really hard to say. They seem to grow out of the ground. I have the same problem at my house, it's a rural area. I throw some poison in the crawl space under my house occasionally and it seems to take care of them. I've tried traps but the dog, cat, or the kids can get hurt with them so I tried the sticky pads. Find them with a lot of fur on them but no mice. Someone on here turned me on to a pretty neat trick. Take a 5-gallon bucket and sit something beside it they can get up on. Spread a little peanut butter inside the bucket a couple or three inches down from the top. They fall in trying to get the peanut butter and can't get back out. Works pretty good, nice and safe for the friendly critters and the kids.



Scott

 

[Cattletrkr]

Take a 5-gallon bucket and sit something beside it they can get up on. Spread a little peanut butter inside the bucket a couple or three inches down from the top. They fall in trying to get the peanut butter and can't get back out. Works pretty good, nice and safe for the friendly critters and the kids.

Yep, and to make it more effective/fun, put about 4" of water in the pail... if ya got a meanstreak towards mice.

 

[abdiver]

I think 6 to 8 inches of water just in case you get one that can stand up in 4 inches of wa.



Another trick I recall is take a 55 gallon drum fill water a 1/4 way up stretch a piece of rubber over it tie rubber in this position us good ol bale wire and then cut a big X in the middle of the rubber mouse or Rat walks towards the middle of it and falls into the water I imagine I might hang a string right above the middle of the X and place a bit of bait on the end of it.

 

[rwitt]

I had mice/rats chew the firewall insulation on my truck. Found some of it up against the air filter. Apparently they were thinking of building a nest in the intake tube to the air filter. Also they chewed up the wiring to the Edge EZ plus got into the engine compartment of my Jeep and chewed through one of the plastic vacuum lines.

Rich

 

[twopipes]

Don't waste your time and money with the poison, just get two outside cats and your problems will be delivered to your doorstep.

 

[WyattEarp]

the water in bucket trick works, or if you have a issue in your basement/garage leave a bucket of used oil sitting long enough and well there must be something they love about used motor oil, they can't resist it. Seems that used veggie oil works also, the bucket is kinda like the roach motel they can check in but can't jump out so to speak...

The poison is useless, they seem to store the dam stuff everywhere and unless a water source is around it doesn't seem to work to well, plus who wants to dismantle their vehicle searching for a rank mouse... a mouse trap in your car/truck will stop that. .

Here where i live its not so much mice as Ground squirrels(chipmunks) talk about chewing and they don't care rubber, insulation, wires its all fair game. I have cooked many of a mouse on an engine, something you won't forget as far as smell.

 

[MFalkinham]

I don't like using poison in my workshop because the mice will crawl into the nooks & crannies to die, and then what a STINK!

Instead, I've had very good luck using these traps with some peanut butter as bait. The traps are quite sentitive to even small mice, and you can empty and reset them easily without having to touch the dirty critters.