Keeping Rodents Out of Your Car: Check Under the Hood!

As the weather turns colder, rodents like mice and even rats look for warm places to nest and get away from the elements, and many find cars to be an ideal option. Unfortunately, once these animals get inside, they tend to do a lot of damage.

A common hang out for these pests is under the hood, and they like to get inside things like the air filter housing, where they will chew up the filter to make nesting material.  Small animals will also go under the hood insulation, often dragging food along with them, like dog food, bird seed, acorns and walnuts.  If they don’t have food to bring along, they may feast on the wiring in the engine compartment and wreak havoc on your ability to drive the car.

Credits: Winter Pests: Keeping Rodents out of Your Vehicle – Think Smart

Keeping Rodents Out of Your Car: Check the Ventilation System!

Rodents can find their way inside the car, as well.  They typically can enter through the ventilation system, and love to nest near the heater fan, which is generally located behind the glove box on the right side of the dash, nearby or directly above the heater core.  The heater core stays warm long after you leave the car and have turned off the engine, making this spot an ideal nesting area.  These critters pack food and nesting material inside the fan blade, which looks similar to a hamster wheel, and throw the blade out of balance, causing noise and vibration during operation.  Other problems stemming from this include blocked vents, which impedes airflow, as well as complications from chewed wiring. 

Credits: Winter Pests: Keeping Rodents out of Your Vehicle – Think Smart

Keeping Rodents Out of Your Car: Don’t Start a Pest Cemetery!

Now, it’s bad enough to think about mice living in your vehicle, but it can get worse:  they can die inside the engine compartment or vehicle, as well.  Whether these bothersome tenants meet their demise trying to escape fan blades, chewing electrified wires, or otherwise, the outcome remains the same. The often hard-to-find remains can be foul smelling and continue to contribute to the aforementioned problems. Finding the culprit and eliminating the damage and the odor can be difficult and expensive.  How big of a problem is this?  We have seen damage over $10,000 caused by rodents.  And we see about one vehicle per week during the warm months with a problem, and sometimes 4 or 5 per week when the weather turns cold.  

Keeping Rodents Out of Your Car: Top 4 Tips

The best solution to this problem is to avoid the problem in the first place. Below are several tips that should help prevent rodents from exploring your car. 

1. Keep Your Garage a Food-Free Zone: Don’t store pet food or bird food in a garage or outside unless it is in a tightly sealed, mouse-proof container.  Food attracts rodents, and they will take that food into your car.
2. Keep Rodents Out of Your Garage: Depending on how you feel about trapping, killing, or poisoning mice, the best way to keep them out of your car is to keep them out of your garage.  Setting traps or poison baits are one way, but moth-balls strategically placed in a garage (away from children and pets) can also be effective.
3. Fabric Softener Isn’t Just for Laundry Anymore: Many boat and RV owners will stuff fabric softener sheets into compartments when the vehicles are put into storage.  Placing Bounce fabric softener sheets in the glove box, under the seats and even inside the hood insulation may keep mice away.  There is the added benefit of that fresh laundry smell, too!
4. Keep Your Car Clean: Throw away garbage in your car.  Those dropped French fries between the seats are attractants to animals.  Keeping the interior clean will help keep the mice away.

​ Credits: Winter Pests: Keeping Rodents out of Your Vehicle – Think Smart

Need help keeping rodents out of your car? Do you have a pest problem in your garage? That’s the first stage of having a pest problem in your car. Eliminate the source:

Call ApolloX Pest Control:

(888) 499-7378

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