Joined: Aug 2017 Posts: 859 Threads: 47
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Location: North Wiltshire
Car type: 1927 Chummy, 1926 Top Hat 1938 Big Seven 1/2 a Trials Chummy
We live in a rural location and the sheds and garage are always prone to "field mice", which are usually wood mice, apodemus sylvaticus.
I use mouse traps in the areas where I store cars, baited with chocolate spread. They have to be emptied every day at this time of year. "Humane" traps are a waste of time unless you release the mice several miles away from your location as they can travel large distances to get home.
On occasions, the mice have caused damage to head linings and trim; last year I evicted a mouse from beneath the back seat of the Top Hat, where it had build a nest by chewing up a blanket, stored in the car. They are a formidable pest.
Joined: Aug 2017 Posts: 817 Threads: 72
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Using poison regularly is ineffective as the mice get tolerant of it. I splash peppermint oil around once a week and only put poison down once or twice a year. It seems to work well. I have caught one or two in tippey type box traps but they often chew their way out.
Unfortunately our Ruby is in storage in a friend's house in the country at the moment so it's out of my control!
Joined: Aug 2017 Posts: 772 Threads: 26
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Location: On a hill in Wiltshire
I find the standard mousetrap very effective, but the bait has to be sticky - peanut butter, etc. - or they can steal it without springing the trap.
Joined: Aug 2017 Posts: 870 Threads: 16
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11
Location: North Yorkshire
I had a mouse living very comfortably in the back of my RL saloon a few years ago when I had garaged it in the lean-to outside the main garage. The first I knew about it was when I went to get the car out in the spring. I had left an old leather flying jacket on the back seat and when I picked it up there was a hole about 6" diameter in the back of it. The seat had a woolen blanket over the cushion and this had been nibbled at the edges. When I lifted the rear seat, the space underneath was stuffed full of the lining of the jacket and the chewed blanket. The mouse must have been very cosy over the winter! Mercifully the mouse had not touched the moquette upholstery and had not caused any damage to the car itself. I still keep the rear seat covered with a woolen blanket just in case a mouse takes up residence. A bit like a sacrificial anode to prevent rust.
Joined: Aug 2017 Posts: 30 Threads: 6
Reputation:
1
Location: Essex
Spotted rats in the garden , so set up a rat trap and regularly just catch mice now using peanut butter as bait.
Joined: Oct 2017 Posts: 1,402 Threads: 45
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Just get a female cat, males are useless mousers. When we moved to a farm house we had rats and mice and we got a female cat which cleared the locality of everything on 4 legs, she ate half and returned the other half to us to collect the reward.
Joined: Jan 2019 Posts: 166 Threads: 14
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Cat any time. Rats, Mice, Rabbits clears the lot and treats you with distain.
Joined: Oct 2017 Posts: 1,402 Threads: 45
Reputation:
8
I forgot the rabbits, the reward was a bowl of fish. I forgot we later had a male Burmese cat who was a real killer literally anything was fair game including squirrels who thought they were safe taking to the trees he was faster.
Joined: Aug 2017 Posts: 616 Threads: 7
Reputation:
7
Location: queensland
We hate cats! An introduced species that's too hard on the wildlife. My workshop is overrun with POSSUMS, and micro bats, they crap on everything knock things off shelves and nest in the tire rack or the foam rolls. The bats hang from the Dodge hood bows and the stink is terrible.
A ray of sunshine appeared the other day when I spied a carpet snake with an enormous bulge and i bet we are one possum down and the others have taken flight, well you know what I mean possums don't fly.
So it's a natural balance, the carpet snakes are native here.
