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MG MGA - Mice.

I have just caught a mouse in a trap in my garage where the 'A' is kept. Is there a risk of them nesting in the car and doing damage, and if so, what can I do about it?
Thanks
Nigel Munford

There are all kinds of home remedies for getting rid of mice in cars. Mothballs, mouse traps, etc. Someone even told me they hate tennis balls. Best remedy however might be to get a cat! :)
Steve S

Me too Nigel - I caught over 30 last winter. I have only caught 5 so far in the garage but I have managed to intercept a few in the shed where I have caught 12 on the way in from the fields. The only way is to keep setting the trap - I use bits of chocolate digestive or other such chocolate biscuit. It is war - they started eating into the foam under the seats and destroyed my teddy mascot! Remember - mice are like chips - you can't have just one!
Cam Cunningham

Your Teddy mascot. That's MURDER.
I use peanut butter, that seems to work quite well.
Nigel Munford

I never had any mouse damage but had them store peanuts in the exhaust pipe, I never figured out how they put them in there though. Maybe it was squirrels? I always stored the car with the top up and the tonneau installed too. I feel it limits the little textile pockets they love to nest in. You could take out the seat squabs if you'd like and store them elsewhere. If you can't KEEP them out, at least you can minimize the potential damage.
Chuck Schaefer

My brother just got his Jensen Healey back from the upholstery shop along with a bill for over $4000.00. The seats were re-done, all the interior panels and trunk panels replaced. The insurance company is picking up the tab, but what a mess. At the upholstery shop when we dropped it off they vacummed out the glove box. Along with what the mice brought in from the seat cushions, etc, were 5 dead mice. Well dried out!
After that I set a trap line in my garage. I have four traps, but as of two weeks now I haven't caught one. I figure my outside cat catches plenty to keep the little buggers at bay. Maybe just too scared to come onto the property.
Ray Ammeter

Nigel

This is where they can nest. Found it when I removed the gearbox tunnel. Brought back from San Diego. They grow them big out there!!!

Ate all the wiring while they were at it. Probably drank the hydraulic fluid as well.


Steve


Steve Gyles

The first sign I saw of the mice in my garage was bits of foam under the seats where they had been chewing on them. I got some Victor Quick Kill traps and baited them with peanut butter and they did the job in a few days.
Jeff Schultz

Mothballs. Mice will avoid them. Toss a few under the seats and in the boot. Common preventive cure to keep rats from eating wiring in Hueys in VN. Used it in Super Cubs during winter in MT. Now use them my MGA in VA. Cheap and works.
Bill Haglan

Found pink fibreglass wall insulation in the heater air tube up against the air control flap. That's when I knew there were mice about the garage.
I have been putting in sheets of drier fabric softener (Bounce) since then under the seats, under the bonnet, behind the grill, in the boot, etc, after I read on a forum that mice do not like the smell of these sheets.
So far so good!
Peter.
P. Tilbury

I use electronic deterrent boxes that plug into wall outlets plus mothballs wrapped in sheets of fabric softener. Seems to work!
David Werblow

A cat is the best first line defence, but the mothball trick and a few traps sound like good advice to me.
Art Pearse

Remember if you use humane traps to release the mouse at least half a mile away. I once caught over 30 mice and thought I had an investation until a rodent controller advised. I checked by putting some correction fluid on the neck of a caught mouse prior to releasing back outside and sure enough the same mouse was caught again the next day.
I recall in my MGA mice had accessed the heater trunking and made a nest in the heater, not that obvious until the fan deposited bits of nest up the windscreen!
Mark Dollimore

Moth balls didn't work for me. I found 4 baby mice under the spare tire in the boot. The smell of urine may have been the worst part other than the fact that I found bare patches in my floor carpeting. They had pulled it up and used it for nesting material

A big black snake living just outside the garage controlled my mice for years. When he moved on, I had to resort to rat poison.

I had a TR6 that, upon initial startup after 8 years of sitting, blew a rats nest out of the tailpipe. Amazing how they get to such places.
JM Morris

One answer of course is to keep them out in the first place. I have put draught/vermin/leaf/rain protectors along the bottom of both my garage doors - see picture.

For those in the UK these are obtainable from ScrewFix http://tinyurl.com/cl3nll3

The strips come pre-drilled. You simply clamp the aluminium strip in place; drill through the garage door and pop rivet or bolt in place; then slide the rubber strip into the channel and cut to fit any unevenness.

Steve






Steve Gyles

Nigel,
my solution to your problem: If the MG is parked besides three cats (Jaguar Mk IV, Mk II and XJ 6), there will be no more mice in your garage! We only had one raccoon as a guest last winter! Other inhabitants in our garage are a Goggomobil, a Kleinschnittger, Alfa Romeo 1300 GT, Duetto Spider, MG A Tourer, MGB GT, MG ZB Magnette, VW Beetle Convertible, Mercedes Bend 250 SE, Triumph TR2, TVR Vixen, MG midget, Citroen Dyane, AUDI 80 (Le Jog Participant this year), asailin yacht an my own hangglider!

Merry christmas and a happy New Year to everyone

Dietrich
D. Krahn

So far I haven't noticed any problems with mice in my garage, but then I have a mouse patrol on duty.


B Young

My mice stories started in Brisbane when I bought my A. The blinkers of aluminum was partially eaten, as some wires and even the plastic relay (FIAMM) of the horns. In Portugal in my garage I found a nest with mother and several little mice. The solution was to get two hungry cats.
Rui
Rui Fonseca

I have tried them all with limited sucess. Mothballs seemed to work the best if enough are put in all the nooks and crannys but try to remember where you put them all. What I do now is cocoon the car. I spread a new 9x15 ft tarp on the floor, center the car on it and after placing a car cover over the car pull the tarp up along the sides and ends of the car useing bungee cords to secure the tarp in place. The car cover fits over all painted surfaces so no need to worry about the rougher tarp scratching the paint. Seems like a lot of work but I can have the car untarped in a moments notice of a nice sunny winter day and in a lot less time than removing all the mothballs/dryer sheets/traps/ poisons. So far the little buggers have not figured they can chew threw it hope there not reading this.
Charles O'Brien

Mice hate the smell of mothballs and they should deter them from nesting in an A - problem is the car will stink of mothballs in the Spring. Keeping your garage doors well sealed helps keep them out as well (if you can see daylight at the edge of the door, a mouse can get through). If you want to put traps out - place the traps up against the wall of the garage or tight in the corners. Mice tend to run next to walls for safety, so you will have better chance of catching them if you place the traps on their "trail".
M. D.

What a good idea Charles - might try that as well as the Screwfix garage door strip that Steve suggests - getting a bit fed up of filling the bin with dead mice!
Cam Cunningham

A guy on the TD/TF board had a mouse nest in his muffler. Took him a while to figure out why the car would not rev.

Matthew.
Matthew Magilton

Cam, buy an owl or a snake and you'll have somewhere to put them!
Lindsay Sampford

I have used dryer sheets for years and have had good success. Don't leave any birdfood, garden seeds, dogfood or the like around---the mice will haul it into your car and set up shop. Pulled about 200 hickory nuts out of the frame of a TR3 years ago. The best mouse deterrent is a big hungry cat----I have one---
TCK Tom

Lindsay - nice idea - but they might eat our frogs too! Steve had the best idea last time round - sell them as organic food to pet shops. Not caught any for 2 weeks - they must have gone a way for the holidays!
Cam Cunningham

This thread was discussed between 18/12/2011 and 28/12/2011

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