<p>I am sitting at one of the complimentary waiting-room computers at my Toyota dealership, where the mysterious odor in my car has just been identified – some mice had made a nest in the air conditioning ducts, and two dead baby mice were found in there. The air conditioning ducts are now being cleaned out, at what will probably turn out to be an exorbitant price.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, my husband has been catching mice in traps in our basement on a regular basis for the past couple of weeks. Just this morning, he caught two, and there’s still some audible scurrying going on down there.</p>
<p>Does anybody know anything that you can do to PREVENT mice from getting into your house or your car? This is getting ridiculous.</p>
<p>Just like us, mice need three basic needs: shelter, water, and food. Sounds like they filled their shelter needs in your basement. And why did they select YOUR basement? Probably because they found the other two needs; food and water. </p>
<p>The water they can get from anywhere, to include leaking pipes, under sinks, wherever (to include going back outside). What will REALLY attract them is a food source. I’d check around you basement and see if you can find any open food sources. Do you use your basement as an extra pantry? Have any cardboard boxes of cereal or other such things? If the answer is yes, put them all in plastic containers so the mice can’t get to them.</p>
<p>Lastly, what about the mice there NOW? Well, practically every grocery store sells rat poison. Usually comes in a little pouch you that you open a corner and place in the basement. We had a field mouse problem in the garage, and this did the trick. Of course, keep this FAR AWAY from where small children or pets can get to. Try a tall shelf if you can find it; someplace the mice can get to but not Junior or Fido. Also, there are more humane methods, like traps.</p>
<p>Bottom Line: get rid of the mice there already through poisons or traps, and prevent more mice form showing up by removing any food source.</p>
<p>My husband can’t be in the same room with a cat for more than a couple of minutes without wheezing and having tears drip down his face.</p>
<p>As for your very sound suggestions, Bullet, I will look for any kind of water leaks, even small ones, in the basement. We do not store food down there or eat down there. But we do have a washing machine in the basement, along with a hot water heater and lots of pipes. </p>
<p>As for the car, it has been parked outside all summer (we were a three-car family with a two-car garage all summer) and therefore water could have gotten into the engine compartment pretty easily. When my daughter returns to college next week, the car will be parked in the garage again and therefore won’t get wet as often. There wouldn’t be food in the engine compartment, and I don’t know whether food (such as crumbs under the seats) in the passenger compartment could serve as an attractant, but in any case, I will vacuum the car thoroughly today, and try to get the vacuum all the way under the seats, which I usually don’t bother to do.</p>
<p>We are getting rid of mice now, too. It is early this year. They usually come in the house in September. Not sure there is a lot you can do to keep them out. They can get through the tiniest of openings. We trap them and in a few days there are no more in the traps.</p>
<p>I’m sorry, my one-word answer sounded flip, Marian, it’s just that my insane kittens have turned into very efficient rodent-killing machines. It’s not a solution for everyone, though.</p>
<p>I think I’d get a professional exterminator on the task. We hired one that specialized in humane trapping and they took care of the squirrel nests in our attic.</p>
<p>Good luck with this, I’m sure it’s highly annoying.</p>
<p>Traps…and a cat (only if the allergy won’t get to you). And as others have said…get rid of the food source. BUT also outside food sources like bird seed in the feeders!!</p>
<p>I’ve read that moth balls attached inside mesh bags inside the engine compartment works as to prevent this from happening. Don’t take my word on this though - I haven’t tried it!!! Maybe do a websearch on “mothballs” and “mice” and see what you find…</p>
<p>We had a mouse family on our manifold. Started to burn and the whole garage was filled with smoke. Called the fire department and left the house (I know…wrong order, but that’s what I did). Car was towed to the dealership and remarkably there was NO damage (they did leave the mouse cremains in a bag for me…why???). They recommended putting a pan of moth balls UNDER where the engine would be when the car was parked in the garage saying the heat would cause the moth ball smell to permeate the area. The only problem…I couldn’t stand the smell of the moth balls in my car!! </p>
<p>I guess we should let our cat in the garage!!</p>
<p>One word of warning if you use the rat poison, make sure that your pets can’t find dead or dying rats and mice to eat. The poison is a blood thinner and it can kill your pet if they ingest enough. Also, if they die in your walls you get stinky walls. Traps are gross, but you have some control over where they die.</p>
<p>Marian, that’s a bargain. A friend told me that he was charged $500 by the dealership for a similar cleaning, and that did not even involve dead mice, just a nest.</p>
<p>Remove any food sources in the garage and nearby, make sure that all holes leading to the garage are sealed, and use mousetraps (H likes glue traps and electronic zappers, I prefer the latter, because they electrocute mice and there is no blood/gore or semi-dead animals to deal with).</p>
<p>We get mice in the house every fall. It’s an old house and I’m sure there are many places they can get in. We use the live traps and take them far enough away that they won’t find their way back. </p>
<p>I once lost one in the car and had to go pick up a kindergarten carpool. I drove 5 little girls home and luckily the mouse stayed hidden the whole trip, then I set the trap up in the car and caught it again!</p>
<p>Maybe you could borrow a cat temporarily, setting up a nice little space in the basement. Then, keep hubby out of the basement for a time. It won’t take long!!! </p>
<p>It is really too bad you can’t have a cat. Your problem would be solved in no time.</p>
<p>We have a cat, but apparently the mice realize she likes to sleep upstairs. Several years ago, I was cleaning out the back of a kitchen drawer and found a stash of cat food. Another time we had to have the dining floor ripped up to repair a leak (our house is on a slab) and found a pile of Hershey Kisses wrappers! Apparently the mice had been helping themselves from our pantry. </p>
<p>Outdoors over the years, Tabby has caught baby rabbits and possoms, shrews, a bird (once), etc. We do try to keep her from catching them as much as possible. But for some reason she doesn’t get the mice that come inside in the winter. So a cat may not solve the problem. </p>
<p>Once DH accidentally let her inside when she was carrying a mouse - he didn’t notice - so I vote for cat over husband although neither seem to be much help re mice.</p>
<p>Cats and mice: There is one problem with using cats for extermination. They like to show off their prizes, or something. Once, when H and I had a ground floor apartment without window screens, our cat came jumping through the front window into our front room, full of dinner guests. She walked into the center of the room, opened her mouth and dropped a live mouse into our midst. Of course, it promptly escaped. Guests scattered.</p>
<p>Mice are amazing. We had a blanket chest in a cabin in Vermont. The mice took an entire bag of dog food my cousins left behind and carried it upstairs and deposited it in that blanket chest. The food might not be in your basement.</p>