Weird problem - advice sought

[midjd]

Hopefully this will lighten things up a tad...

Y'all may remember I bought a new car late last year. Last weekend DH took it into the shop to change the oil. He then texted me "you have a hood rat" and "your hood is full of dog food."

Indeed, when he got home, he popped the hood and lifted it up - it sounded like it was full of marbles. A damn mouse has been stealing kibble from the dog's dish and storing it somewhere inside my car hood!

Two issues:

1) How best to get rid of this mouse*, keeping in mind the dog eats/sleeps in the garage? I thought about setting out traps and moving the dog's dish for a few days, or maybe poison, but I'm still waffling (NOT sticky traps, those things give me nightmares.)

2) Assuming we can find the entrance point to his stash - any ideas on the dog food removal process? High powered vacuum? I suggested to DH he could secretly trade hoods with another car on the lot (mine is a very common make/color), but he didn't think that was a good idea.

*Yes, I know if there is one, there are a thousand.

If you don't have any advice (and I don't blame you), any weird animal stories are also appreciated.

[swamp]

Feed the dog in the house?

[garion2003]

Change to moist dog food?

[thyme4change]

I prefer traps, but a lot of people I know use Just One Bite, and they say it works.  

If you can hide it behind something that the mouse can get to, but the dog can't, it won't harm the dog.  Inside a piece of PVC, or inside a stack of cinderblocks would prevent a dog from getting it.  

[Deleted]

Are you sure it's a mouse? I had that with a chipmunk...

[SVT]

Get a cat. 

[midjd]

You need to trade in that lazy dog for a terrier, lol! This would never happen on Mr. T's watch!

I know, lazy thing! She has no problem going after moles (and digging giant holes in the yard) but I guess she and these mice are friends or something.

Feeding her inside isn't really an option - she refuses to come inside. I'm guessing the previous owners trained her not to (she came with the house). Soft/wet food might be a good compromise while Operation Mousetrap is in effect.

I prefer traps, but a lot of people I know use Just One Bite, and they say it works.

If you can hide it behind something that the mouse can get to, but the dog can't, it won't harm the dog. Inside a piece of PVC, or inside a stack of cinderblocks would prevent a dog from getting it. 

Never heard of One Bite, I'll have to check it out - thanks!

Are you sure it's a mouse? I had that with a chipmunk...

Gosh, I hope not... no way I could bring myself to trap/poison a cute little chipmunk. But I'm pretty sure it's a mouse, DH has seen it a few times (and not caught it - he's as bad as the dog).

[swamp]

When my brother was in Jr high, he was selling candy bars for a band fundraiser. One night, he left the box of candy bars upon the coffee table in the living room. The next morning, all the almond ones were gone. He told my parents and they thought he ate them.

The next day, my mom heard scratching in the wall in her beauty shop that was connected to our house. She pulled out the hair washing unit and all the almond candy bars were back there with the nuts dug out of them.

They out out a trap for the animal.

The next night, my mon got up to go to the bathroom and a squirrel ran in front of her, right over out black labs snout, who just laid there the whole time.

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

Do you keep the dog food in a sealed container off the floor?  If you don't that's probably where they are getting it.

We had to do that and then we had to make sure to any leftover food back into the sealed container at night.

[Regis]

Use the Tomcat mouse traps and put it in a confined space that the dog can't get to.  But you'll need to find the access point for the mice or you'll just continue to get more since there's a food source for them.

Or you should move out of the sticks!

[Sam_2.0]

We've had chipmunks. Not cute when they start causing trouble. I got little packets of bait and set them out where the dog couldn't access but the chipmunks were running. No more chipmunks. You know it is going into your car, so what about setting the bait near your car & away from the dog?

[midjd]

Apr 16, 2013 14:08:03 GMT -5 NomoreDramaQ1015 said:

Do you keep the dog food in a sealed container off the floor?  If you don't that's probably where they are getting it.

We had to do that and then we had to make sure to any leftover food back into the sealed container at night.

Good idea... we keep the bag in a plastic tote but are both pretty lazy about returning excess food to the bag. Maybe if we start starving them they'll eat from their stash and solve the dog-food-removal problem!

Or you should move out of the sticks!

I'll take mice over the 2" flying cockroaches we had in NY any day! <<shudder>>

[sam]

Find the hole, flush it with a hose dissolving the dog food and then stuff steel wool in the hole.  Steel wool will stop them from chewing their way back in.

[mollyanna58]

Be glad it's just storing food in the car.  I had some kind of critter, squirrel probably, hanging out in the car engine and it chewed through the main wiring harness.  $2,100. repair bill; insurance paid most of it under Comprehensive.

[justme]

Those plastic traps are pretty nice. Compared to the traditional ones it covers the head when it traps the mouse and you just squeeze the other end like a clothespin to open it. We used peanut butter for the bait. Also, my mom found out if you can somehow get them into a bag you can seal wasp spray kills em after a couple of mins - killed a whole family of mice that way. Oh, and my brother also killed one once with a weedwacker, bloody mess though.

[Deleted]

Apr 16, 2013 14:47:06 GMT -5 mollyanna58 said:

Be glad it's just storing food in the car.  I had some kind of critter, squirrel probably, hanging out in the car engine and it chewed through the main wiring harness.  $2,100. repair bill; insurance paid most of it under Comprehensive.

Yeah, we had a problem with pack rats in AZ. They built a nest on top of my Jeep's engine manifold while I was away on a bicycling trip in Western Ireland for two weeks. The Jeep caught on fire just as DH was pulling into Sky Harbor Airport. $5k in damage.

DH's car also had a nest built in his and they had to pull the motor to clean it all out. I forgot what it cost but it wasn't cheap.

And then last summer we discovered pack rats had chewed through my 4 Runner's windshield wiper fluid system and I had to replace that for $250.

Don't mess around with them. All rodents need to chew on stuff and they love to chew on car wiring. Can you say $$$$$?

[tskeeter]

Not an uncommon problem in some parts of the country.  When we lived in LA I left one of the cars sitting in the driveway at night for about a week because I had a project in process in the garage.  Opened the hood to check the oil and found a large hole in the insulation attached to the inside of the hood and a good sized pile of insulation material on the exhaust manifold.  Obviously I had a long tailed buddy looking for a warm place to sleep.

The first time I changed air filters on the car after moving from CA to NV I found about a dozen fruit pits, kind of like peach pits, in the airbox that holds the air filter.  I had noticed the same kind of fruit pits in the parking lot of the motel I stayed at in LA while transitioning from CA to NV.  Do you suppose the rat got mad when it figured out that it's stash of fruit pits had disappeared?

For MidJD, I think I'd try to avoid using poison.  The dog could either get into the poison or find and eat the poisoned mouse.  Neither would be very good for the dog.  Especially since at least some poisons are designed to kill the rodent by causing uncontrolled internal bleeding.  I know you don't like glue boards, but I think they are the safest alternative.  Just put one on the engine of the car each night until you catch your unwelcome guest.  You don't have to handle the glue board yourself.  That's what your husband is for.

To get the dog food out of the inside of the hood, use a vacuum cleaner.  You might need to tape a piece of small flexible hose to the crevice tool to get into the hard to reach places in the hood.  But with a little patience you should be able to get all the dog food out.  Using water to disolve and flush the dog food out of the hood will leave small particles of dog food behind, wedged into nooks and crannys.  These particles will absorb moisture and over time could cause rust to form.  I'd keep it dry.     

[Deleted]

Mid I think it may have been before your time here, but I had a HUGE RAT one day, about four years ago. I saw its shadow as it scuttled and given the size of the shadow, I realized we had a HUGE RAT in the house.

DS2 had pet mice so he forbade me from buying a regular mousetrap. I bought a "humane" mousetrap instead. We put cheese in for two nights, no dice. The third night we put a bit of chocolate into the trap instead of cheese, and lo and behold, the next morning, we had a live mouse alive in the "humane" trap. We released it about a block away, in a teeny tiny forest. I still remember all the shouting that morning about who had the time to run there and back before school LOL. 

Because once that giant rat stopped carrying a flashlight to give itself a huge shadow, it turned out to be only a small mouse.

Imagine that LOL!

[Peace Of Mind]

Just buy a new car!

[❤ mollymouser ❤]

They make some rather nifty electrical traps now where the mouse/rat goes in after bait and gets electrocuted. You should be able to place it some place the dog can't get a paw in, accidentally.

Store the dog food inside, even if you still feed the dog in the garage.

Peppermint oil is a safe, natural rodent repellent and could be used liberally in your garage. Added bonus: your dog will smell minty-fresh.

[busymom]

 Do you want to borrow our Bad Boy Puppy?  He catches rodents as good as any cat I've ever seen. 

[GRG a/k/a goldenrulegirl]

Can you get a cat?  

[haapai]

I'd recommend taking a page from the integrated pest management manual.  The rodent is the problem here, so follow the steps. 

• Remove the food source.  This is what is attracting the cutie.
  
• Remove the pest's hiding spots.  Yeah, I know it is a garage, there's a lot that you can do to make it less hospitable. 
  
• Then go after the pest and block the pest's access to the site in question. 
  

Skipping the first two steps and just going after the pest is exciting but not very effective. 

I don't know how to get kibble out of a car's guts, but I think that is where you need to start. 

[goldensam]

Apr 16, 2013 14:17:59 GMT -5 midjd said:

Apr 16, 2013 14:08:03 GMT -5 NomoreDramaQ1015 said:

Do you keep the dog food in a sealed container off the floor?  If you don't that's probably where they are getting it.

We had to do that and then we had to make sure to any leftover food back into the sealed container at night.

Good idea... we keep the bag in a plastic tote but are both pretty lazy about returning excess food to the bag. Maybe if we start starving them they'll eat from their stash and solve the dog-food-removal problem!

What about scheduled measured feedings rather than free feeding?  We feed 2x day with a specific amount.  Keeps the dogs from overeating and doesn't encourage pests. 

[steph08]

Ditto the scheduled feelings instead of leaving food out all the time.

DH did that with his first boxer, just left food out all the time (in the house though). Then one day he opened his bottom desk drawer and it was full of dog kibble! 

We use Vittles Vault containers for our dog food and they work well. Nice, heavy duty plastic keeps bugs and rodents out and the food stays fresh. We actually have three of them in our kitchen now.

[Lizard Queen]

I have no advice, but you have my sympathy. A couple summers ago, I start up my car and head down the road to go to work. I got about 30 yards and out pops a mouse onto my hood right in front of my face, so I slowed down and it scurried across my hood. I sped up and turned slightly to get it off! Freaked the bajeezus out of me. The following year, my vent fan stopped working. The mechanic found a nest with a dead mouse in it. That's what I get for parking out on the driveway, I guess. We'd need a 3 car garage for me to park it inside with all the rest of the junk we store in there.

[DVM gone riding]

Apr 16, 2013 14:26:07 GMT -5 sam said:

Find the hole, flush it with a hose dissolving the dog food and then stuff steel wool in the hole.  Steel wool will stop them from chewing their way back in.

I don't know what kind of dog food you feed your dog but water does not dissolve dog food. It just makes it fluff and get stuck. Would be better to take the hood apart then add moisture and cause a mold problem.

I prefer snap mouse traps. human for the mouse, save for the dog, cheap!

[AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP]

I parked in the grass behind a hotel in GA once because there were no spots in the paved lot- but other cars pulled over onto the grass- there were treads in the red dirt and "spots" where you could park, so I did.

Walking out to the car, I kicked over a mound of fireants, I guess-- and didn't realize it until about midway on the on-ramp.  

Not one of my finer moments, and very, very unpleasant. 

[Cass]

I don't kill the guests, I close the buffet.

I've had success with putting food sources in plastic bins and using live traps to relocate mice to the tracks behind my house.

My funny animal story:  We went to a drive in movie and gorged on concession food.  Being late when we got in, we just left the leftover food in the truck to deal with the next day.  A window must have been left slightly open because every crumb of food, (including a several days old uneaten lunch) had vanished by the next morning.

[sam]

DVM, I feed my dog dry dog food.  Every once in a while a piece ends up in the water bowl turning it into doggy soup.  But then, who knows how long it's been in there.