<p>I’m sick of &<em>#@ing snakes in this #&</em>%@ing car!!! GROSS!!!</p>
<p>A gross rat story…my aunt and uncle lived on a big (successful) hog farm. She had a Porsche 911 that she stored all winter long (it was in a very wintery climate). When she tried to start it up in the spring, it wouldn’t start. She opened the hood and SAW 3 rats. Major freak out, of course…had car towed to the Porsche dealer… I can’t remember how many total rats dead + alive were removed from her car…but they had built elaborate nests and had eaten through all the electrical system, all the hoses, etc. and caused enough damage that the engine had to be rebuilt. AAAUGHGHGHG!</p>
<p>We did a glue trap. Once. When we lived in West Philly. It was a horrible way for the little rodent to go. It suffered terribly. I have plastic traps that capture them (alive, about half the time) – then the guys release them in the nearby woods. The mice go for this trap even without loading food. With the dog around, I am extremely reluctant to put out poison.</p>
<p>I’ll have to try the White-Out – I could swear we’ve had repeat visitors. This is part of what comes with living in an older neighborhood with lots of trees and big lots – the overgrowth promotes lots of wildlife. We’ve had foxes, groundhogs, deer… </p>
<p>No snakes in the car, thank goodness!!! Just thinking about that gives me the willies!</p>
<p>Problem with poison is that if its the type that the mouse eats and dies later, you have a dead mouse that might be hidden from view, but your nose will know its there for longer than you will want, so the traps are your best bet either the sticky traps or the “death” traps. You really don’t want a family of dead mice in your car, hidden behind the dash, or hidden in other nonaccesible pockets.</p>
<p>Have you got a cat you can let hand out in your garage? We live on the edge of a woods, and I was never a cat person. Then D2 wanted a cat for Christmas. The story behind getting the kitten (after Christmas) is for another thread. But I have never ever seen a mouse since.</p>
<p>PS we found the missing thread!</p>
<p>Speaking of mice and dog food. We share a cabin in VT. One year one of the dog owners, left a bag of dog food behind. The mice in the house took every pellet of dog food and carried up to a blanket chest in the attic. </p>
<p>Another person left the top off a bottle of olive oil. Not one, not two, but three mice chose to drown themselves in it.</p>
<p>Meanwhile we’ve tried to catch the mice in our house. At first the traps worked fine, but in the last year we haven’t managed to entice any mice. They dance around them or leap over them and leave their little droppings within inches of the traps. We’ve tried every kind of trap and every kind of bait. Nothing works anymore. Maybe I should leave a bottle of olive oil open?</p>
<p>For the rats I recall consulting with an exterminator, finding the point of entry and closing it, glue traps (what a ruckus! ), and my knight in shining armour (dh…that was an exercise in humility for me…). Before seeing the rats I actually accused my sons friends of taking a bite of fruit from the fruit bowl on the kitchen table and then putting it back …on several occasions!!! When it was suggested it might be a rat I scoffed… big deal…how are they different fom mice?..until I saw one. You could actually see them running through the house. Apparently not so with tiny mice…the little cuties…Don’t get me started on the snakes… I know, they eat the rats. I do tolerate them, but from a distance.</p>
<p>another mouse in the house story…had an annoying problem a few summers ago, two cats in the house (former mousers, decided to retire). Went with the snap traps. H was traveling most of that summer, so batting eyelashes was not going to work. Vigilance paid off after a couple of weeks, no sign. And then, one day…that distinct, unforgettable fragrance of decaying rodent…followed the scent to its source – my “extra” pantry, where I discovered the filthy greedy beast had torn open a bag of potato chips, crawled in, ate himself to death and drowned in Lays. Guess he really couldn’t eat just one.</p>
<p>(That same summer I had a skunk decide to take regular morning swims in our pool. Now that was an adventure)</p>
<p>A friend of mine lived near a river during a drought a few years ago and the neighborhood became infested with rats. She buckled her toddler in the carseat one morning. A few minutes later the child said that the strap was loose. The rats had eaten through the strap. Seconds after that the child screams. Mom looks in rear view mirror to see rat crawling on top of child’s head. They moved out of their home for weeks.</p>
<p>OK, I’m officially unsubscribing to this thread! Too unsettling for me!</p>
<p>When I was growing up, we had a very swampy, forested area behind our house. At one time or another, we had mice, rabbits (twice chased into the house by the cat), a snake, and a frog----the last one on the second floor! No idea what made it go up the stairs (and we were all way beyond the catch a frog and let it go in the house stage, so it wasn’t that).</p>
<p>Gracious, just borrow someone’s cat.</p>
<p>They work for free, and if you are lucky, they will eat the whole thing and you’ll be all done.</p>
<p>Ewww.!!! Snakes!!! That’s disgusting. I’d never put anything like grass clippings in a car. Ever. That’s it, if/when I get a car, It’s staying indoors at all times. These pest stories turned me off of buying a single-family house, like, FOREVER. I guess I’ll be spending the rest of my life in a condo now.</p>
<p>the cats around here like to bring their prizes (often lizards, birds) “home”… and I don’t have a cat.</p>
<p>you guys are so funny.</p>
<p>I havent had a rat in my car but my cat used to bring presents home- alive of course because she loved me.
SHe would meow at the door and run in and drop the poor thing. The last baby rat I kept in a bucket in the bathtub before I figured out what to do with it ( but I think it ran down the heat vent)
Ive had to unstick a class gerbil from a glueboard because the 2nd gd teacher was too squeamish to help it.
I agree cats are very handy- but rodents aren’t one of my phobias- that would be heights.</p>
<p>Our first trip to Hawaii. We are driving a narrow and windy road, and humongous roach comes out of the dash board! I was at the steering wheel, but kept my cool.</p>
<p>I can share a plethora of rodent stories, but I’m in the middle of my lunch right now :)</p>
<p>If a humongous roach came out of my car, I’d have a freaking heart attack. Right there. I get scared at spiders. If I saw a rat in my house, I’d SERIOUSLY have a freaking heart attack. And then I’d end up with PTSD. My mom’s thing is caterpillars. She nearly has a freaking seizure every time she sees one. I squish it to death, my sister puts it on a leaf and releases it on the lawn.</p>
<p>If I see a pest, rat, roach, chipmunk, squirrel, spider, whatever, I’ll wake up in an emergency room.</p>
<p>In the day, as a college student, our school had its first Study Abroad Program in Mexico. Yes, it was that long ago, that it was a very new concept. We went to Acapulco for Dia de los muertos, and in trying to find a party in some condos, we got lost - turned right instead of left. Anyway, after a horrifyingly scary night, waiting for the taxi that never came, we had to try to get back. By then we had directions, and 5 girls holding hands were going back. We could see the back of our hotel, and decided to go from the back, not the front, because it would save us a block, and we were tired, miserable and scared. So, we started walking down this dark street at 3:00 am. Then, we were jumping. I have never seen so many - we estimated thousands - of rats just running across the road between the trash dumps of the hotels. That image is still in my brain, along with that of us, holding hands, running with knees up to our chins and crying and screaming until we finally got to our hotel. We moved out the next day into one of the condos next door to the one we had been seeking.</p>
<p>My sister and BIL used to live in Texas and they found a REALLY BIG snake in their toilet once. This is getting to be like the hook on the back of the car story.</p>
<p>My Mom showed me that a scared mouse will run into a paper bag and I’ve done that before, but this one thinks it lives in my car–just getting it out won’t change its mind, I’m afraid. I think it has to die. I googled mouse in car and some guy had a story about capturing, marking and releasing mice a mile from his house and some came back. And since everything we read on the internet is true…</p>
<p>Contact your FA office immediately and see if you can claim the mouse as another dependent. It might help with your FA offer…lol</p>
<p>OK, I can top this:</p>
<p>Possums in my garage!</p>
<p>A whole family of them! </p>
<p>What to do???</p>
<p>I have a kitty door so my cats can get in. When it’s cold or raining, I feed the cats in the garage. So the possums are attracted to the food. The cats don’t mind them at all. I don’t want to use a trap or any such device for fear that the cats would get trapped.</p>