How do the mice get in?

If you use a poison to kill them don't park your car in there at the same time.
They will eat the poison then go to their nesting spot (inside your car) and die. That's when the smell can get really bad and it can be impossible to find the carcasses. I've had to try and find the source of those obnoxious odors in customers cars years ago and it required a shit load of interior dis-assembly. And that was when cars were less complicated as far as HVAC ducting and so forth.
Not fun.

Rickw wrote:

If you use a poison to kill them don't park your car in there at the same time.
They will eat the poison then go to their nesting spot (inside your car) and die. That's when the smell can get really bad and it can be impossible to find the carcasses. I've had to try and find the source of those obnoxious odors in customers cars years ago and it required a shit load of interior dis-assembly. And that was when cars were less complicated are far as HVAC ducting and so forth.
Not fun.

Great catch, Rick!

Albertj

My garage has a loooooong way to go before there is any chance of keeping mice out of it. But I'm working on it.

an old trick buta somewhat smelly one is to sprinkle cat piss around the garage on the outside. the mice smell this and stay away. seriously!

Hey pootie pootie come here I milk you

and away to discourage stray cats from roaming around your property and scenting everywhere is to sprinkle human pee pee allover. this will keep em away for awhile. just repeat when necessary. im serious

New record, trapped 3 mice last night. One on top of the trunk. Crazy mouses! There'll be a happy Coyote at my dead mouse drop tonight!

Jack the R wrote:

New record, trapped 3 mice last night. One on top of the trunk. Crazy mouses! There'll be a happy Coyote at my dead mouse drop tonight!

congrats on the Slayings!!

JACK THE R, CONQUEROR! king kong aint got nuthin on him!

it's late August, the mice are roaming for winter nesting. WOuld not be surprised to find a number more.

Albertj

The vent screen at the base of the windshield is intact. Where else could they get in at?

have u checked all the drain holes? check the ones in the trunk. check the one in the batterie area. that little rubber thingie that covers the batterie vent hole allways pops out....

Where are the ones in the trunk at?

I check the battery area every couple weeks because I've found a nest there in the past. The plastic thing is plugging the vent hole, but if they can squeeze through that plastic tube then that is a way in. I can see a baby mouse getting through their, but not the big fellas I've been trapping. I haven't seen any baby mice yet.

The trunk vent is inside the passenger side rear bumper fascia. Easiest way to see it is to remove the trunk liner as if you were repairing/replacing the power antenna. It is toward the rear bottom of the fender.

There is a matching area for a vent on the drivers side in the trunk, but is should be closed off with a plastic plug. Maybe you wanna check it.

If I were you I'd consider buying an hour of lift time, putting the car up and checking for openings.

If this was my car and I had a power washer, I would probably clean the underside of the car well with a disinfectant solution. Probably not bleach because of the potential for damage, but odo-ban, lsol, pine-sol or some such that gets rid of the scent trail that mice leave on things. That way it is not so easy for new mice to find and follow the path the old ones took. After it dried off I'd scrape rust and paint on some POR-15.

Albertj

Albert,
Just curious, Do you know about the vent location because yours got plugged up or what?????
Recently you posted about replacing the seal for your trunk lid. I'm assuming you had a leak. ????
POR-15, Is this a Paint or Rust Preventative Coating or Both. ????
I'm planning some lift time for mine in a couple of month's (before winter) to clean, sand, scothbrite any and all areas underneath and priming and painting. Any tips on good products for that job would be appreciated.

I got a replacement seal for my trunk because I thought it was a problem - but as it turns out all that happened was that when I had Eleanor (my Riv is named Eleanor) in the body shop for touch-ups they pulled the trunk lid to get it out of the way for refinishing the passenger side rear quarter (it had probably 20 door dings) and on reinstalling it did not align it right. Yeah it leaked but I fixed it with a dollar bill and a wrench. Bottom line is I ended up realigning the trunk lid and have a perfectly good trunk gasket listed in the For Sale section of this site.

POR-15 is a paint (well - it's moisture-cured polyurethane actually). It is not naval jelly or rust converter, it chemically scavenges the misture out of iron oxide and seals it from further corrosion. See http://www.por15.com/whatispor15.asp for more. I liked it better when the advertising was not so lurid - but heck, the stuff is one of the few things that you can buy that really works as advertised.

If you're going to use it I suggest prepping with their MetalReady, which converts rust to an inert stuff using zinc phosphate. I also suggest topcoating it with rattle-can paint - some Dupli-color from autozone or a paint shop I suppose. For the black, a rattle can of glossy or flat rustoleum or Krylon from Walmart would be great.

Albertj

I used to have a problem with mice, then I put these on the Riv and never had another problem...





No really....start the Riv, close the garage doors and put those fuckers to sleep...

I've used POR-15 before. That stuff is no joke. I mean, it works, but it's also somewhat challenging to handle if you're new to it. It eats through styrofoam and anything it gets on, it stays on forever.

Thanks for the advice Albertj. I don't know of anyone around here who would rent me a lift. Every time I get to know a mechanic, a few months later they've either disappeared or gone to jail.

What the hell is this? Did GM purposely design a way for mice to get in?

For those who haven't seen one of these in real life, this thing is like a pet door in a house, but the openings are perfect mouse size. They push open the flap and they're in!

(and that part of my trunk is Shit City!)

I'll see if I can close this off with window screen. I've got a bunch of it I've been using in my War on Carpenter Bees. Out here in the country it's a constant struggle against everything animal, vegetable, and mineral.

I'm not joking.

Is there anywhere else the mice can get in?

JR,
Where exactly is that located on the car.???

Never mind, I just read Albert's post regarding rear fender area, if that's the one.
I've never had all the carpeting out in my trunk yet.

There is a matching area for a vent on the drivers side in the trunk, but is should be closed off with a plastic plug. Maybe you wanna check it also.

As for the passenger side vent, I'd be thinking to hot-melt or plastic-weld a piece of 1/8" hardware cloth into the vent device somehow, so the flap still works. I would cut it to size and use a soldering iron to heat the hardware cloth at the points it touches the vent frame, thus bit by bit melting it into place.

Although a piece of fiberglass or aluminum window screen cut larger than the opening might suffice.

Hey, if there's good news here it's that you found the pet door and you can deal with it inexpensively.

In the mean time you might want to duct tape that opening closed, so the mice don't throw a party while you are modifying the vent grille.

Albertj

Doesn't look like the driver's side hole was ever punched out.

So what is this thing for again? I'm thinking of JB welding on a metal plate, possibly perforated with 1/16" drill holes if necessary.

I would think it is part of the design for airflow through the car. The design is to provide slight positive air pressure in the cabin and a method for evacuating stale air while maintaining cabin pressure.

RW wrote: would think it is part of the design for airflow through the car. ..........i have allways wondered this myself? wow!

I was thinking it was to keep the trunk lid from blowing off or crumpling if pressure became unequal between the trunk and the outside air.

I'm surprised at how big an opening GM felt was necessary.