Vintage vehicle winter storage

[cletrac (RIP)]

Around here, farm machinery dealerships sell a bag of stuff that you put in the cab and the little critters stay away but I can't remember the product's name. Whatever you put in the cab, make sure you use rodenticide in the building or surrounding area too.

[RHClarke]

We have a sure-fire mouse control system that we use at the barn. Bob's herd of "outdoor" cats help to keep the pests from overwhelming us. Mind you, the natural "by-products" of the cat patrol can be somewhat off-putting...

[Bob Carriere]

.....cats are effective to some extent but have limitations.....

They tend to mark their territory like CMPs...... not noticeable at -40 degrees but come Spring and warm sunshine....phew.

We had a really bad smell coming from my 3 level big red tool box on wheels a few months ago..... narrowed it down to the bottom drawer where I store delicate things like air oilers/dryer, pressure gauges, paint gun filters
and my 3M paint mask.

Well I found a nest of small mice..... who had obviously been abandonned after mother became a meal to the cats..... they had turned to jelly and maggots...... and they had nested in the inside cup of my mask...... yeck!!

So I bought a new one......geez!!!

Boob

[Don Dingwall]

Jon:

At the risk of hijacking this thread back to your question, try cayenne pepper.

Sprinkle copious quantities around. The little bastards will stay away. Works for deer, squirrels, kids.....

Cheers
Don

[RHClarke]

Originally Posted by Don Dingwall

Jon:

At the risk of hijacking this thread back to your question, try cayenne pepper.

Sprinkle copious quantities around. The little bastards will stay away. Works for deer, squirrels, kids.....

Cheers
Don

Free trade opened the borders to many a foreign invader - I suspect that the pepper will work on our Canadian mouses, but not on the likes of speedy Gonzales...mind you, Bob's cats may like them with a little seasoning. Failing that, Grant has experience in ridding mice from CMP fuel tanks...

[aj.lec]

Double dose of spider bombs work well on just about anything in area it is misting .
Spiders ,cockroaches ,mice and snakes .
Do that every month , in conjunction with a few baits and that should minimise damage

[Phil Waterman]

Yup it is that time of year to seal things up and protect them, remember my experiences last year with something crawling all the way in to the valve ports through the manifold http://orbit.dnsrouter.com/~mlu/foru...ad.php?t=14498. What really bother me about that was along with the acorns the critter hauled in it carried in enough rat poison pellets to take out a lot of mice, rates and anything else but it still got into the engine and did damage.

So remember to seal up exhaust pipes, soda cans seem to work well.

If you want to do a quality check of your cats work on keeping the critters down, a friend of mine Dr. Duce has a critter early detection system he uses. Steve saves toilet paper tubes with the last one or two squares of TP still attached he carefully tears the end sheet so that he has a clean square edge he then leaves these around his shop and vehicles. If he sees a ragged edge he knows the critters are in the area.

Personally I have two methods I'm using one plain hold mouse and rat traps peanut butter seems to be the best bate. The other is one that I have used for years on my HUP. For some reason mice like to build nest in the rear seat tool box tried various the things the best one is antifreeze I leave an open gallon jug with a couple of table spoons of fresh antifreeze still in the jug. Lay the jug on it side without the cap. No more mice nests in the seat box.

But thanks for bringing this issue up again. Did several things one went and covered all the exhaust pipes, refreshed the moth ball pans in all the hardware cabinets. Baited the traps. And made a note to put a tech tip reminder club newsletter.

Cheers Phil

[Ganmain Tony]

Originally Posted by Bob Carriere

.....cats are effective to some extent but have limitations.....

They tend to mark their territory like CMPs...... not noticeable at -40 degrees but come Spring and warm sunshine....phew.

We had a really bad smell coming from my 3 level big red tool box on wheels a few months ago..... narrowed it down to the bottom drawer where I store delicate things like air oilers/dryer, pressure gauges, paint gun filters
and my 3M paint mask.

Well I found a nest of small mice..... who had obviously been abandonned after mother became a meal to the cats..... they had turned to jelly and maggots...... and they had nested in the inside cup of my mask...... yeck!!

So I bought a new one......geez!!!

Boob

That sounds perfectly vile Bob, glad you didnt post any photo's..

John, a lot of the mouse & rat baits on the market contain Warfarin which thins the blood to an extent that the animal goes into Cardiac arrest and suffers from death (dreadful way to die, death).

The down side is their body temp drops and they seek out warm places to die, then of course, decompose.

So when you nail em you'll end up finding them behind the beer fridge near that nice warm motor for example.

So the simple answer is to, as Rich suggested, aquire one of our brown snakes and watch him go!! (from a safe distance....)