Car storage and mice

sons car, daily driver had it parked over the weekend, was going to go to store with friend, got in car turned on AC and fire ants were being blown out of the AC vents onto his friend and him, they had built a nest in the car in two days.

"Dick R." wrote in news:JKudnR35DfXmBcrXnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@posted.visi:

Here's a funny one. Back in the 70s, I jumped in my '62 Ford Galaxie to go somewhere. I kept hearing a strange little squeaking noise behind the speedometer. Thinking I would get a can of silicone spray and douse the area, I paid no attention.

When I pulled in my driveway, Mama Cat was going out of her mind. She jumped in my open window before the car had even stopped moving, went up behind the dash and retrieved her newborn kitten. True story.

What a special beginning to the day, a shower of fire being blown at you at wind tunnel speeds....

Some years ago, I had a red squirrel in the garage. Very irritating, but I checked and blocked every place where the squirrel could get in with the garage door closed. Problem solved? not quite. The squirrel chewed its way through the cedar siding, sheathing, insulation and pegboard to get into the garage. I made some repairs and the squirrel was finally gone. When I drove the Capri out of the garage in the spring and lifted the hood, I discovered a nest, and it was nasty - dead baby squirrels.

That's why I always say: Check under the hood before driving - buckle up and don't text message while driving.

JMHO Dick

I drove up to Tarrytown, NY to retrieve my son's Escort, which had sat abandoned in a parking lot for a time. Problem was that yellowjackets had built a large nest just inside the edge of the driver's door. So we hopped over to the store to get some bug spray and took care of that problem. Since the car had been idle for so long, I drove it myself to a nearby gas station for a fillup and tire check. Popped open the fuel filler door and found a HUGE nest. And the bug juice was in the other car with my wife and son who had gone on to a restaurant for lunch. Gas would have to wait.

I keep my John Deere in an outdoor shed, but that shed is home to mice and some very large spiders. Saw a barn spider the size of a tarantula one day, so I figured that I'd make room in the garage for the Deere and keep it safe in there. Spent a weekend cleaning out the garage, washed and - yes - put a little carnuba on the Deere's hood, then squeezed it into a space just large enough that I could pull TFrog into the garage with room to close the door.

Next time I wanted to cut the grass, I found the flaw in that plan. TFrog wouldn't start. (I'm thinking fuel pump, since there's no sound of it when I turn the key to ON.) I had to push TFrog out of the way, to get the tractor out. The Deere is now back in the shed.

dwight

My 1967 MG B/GT, bought new and in the family ever since, sits behind the house awaiting restoration or lightning strike. It's been there since 1992, when it decomissioned itself with what I diagnosed as bearingless transmission disease, the result of my father's declining ability to squeeze under the dash to measure and refill fluid to requirements.

It has a history (did a solo II at Riverside Raceway [California] when it had less than 400 miles on it, raced in the Playas de Tijuana event[s], 1967-68) and sentimental value (sister used it to follow the SCCA national road-racing tour all over the West for a year or so), but I'm about to admit I don't have the interest or skills to put it back together, even though most of the required parts are in the black-widow infested garage.

There's that, and the generations of skunks who have been born and raised under it and, maybe, in the engine compartment. The interior seems secure and unpopulated.

One evening I went out to take the air, and one of the little ones mistook my warm, moving presence as "mama", and came trotting up to me. So cute, just like in the cartoons. Major scrambling and flight when it realized a mistake had been made.

Imagine the Youtube video you could have gotten for the few extra cents per gallon at a full serve. LOL

Then there are the proctical joke masters.... in Portugal's Azores Islands somebody caught a cute little hedgehog and released it inside of a truck we had. Aftera time the truck began to develope a foul odor. The odor was tracked under the rear seat into a small tunnel opening on the driver side, which appeared to follow the frame rail. The hedgehog had crawled in, died ad began to decompose. And in a location not reachable.... and even a firehose appeared not to get it all out.

In another case, in the California desert, an unknown prankster had released a rather large gopher snake in the cab of a patrol vehicle. Later the same day, the patrolman was cruising along when the snake popped up through the dash defroster vent right in front of him. The surprise led to panic (gopher snakes look VERY much like rattlesnakes to those not familiar with reptiles), and panic led to a flashflood condrol culvert. Fortunately, no injuries, although there was a lot of serious paint damage to the passenger side the vehicle landed on.

Most people do not realize that tarantulas migrate. That's when you find out how many there are that you never knew were there if you live in the desert. Gets so thick at times that cars loose traction and spinouts are not unusual when drivers hit a black patch of roadway that suddenly turns slippery.

By the way, think crushed mothballs for those pesky rodents, and for black widows, a tarantula is great. When black widows would show up in my garage, I'd go catch a tarantula and turn it loose in the garage (and forewarn my then wife!). Tarantulas like the dark cool garage, and the like to snack on black widows.

Living on a farm, we get mice in almost every vehicle, even one parked in the garage this year. Particularly bad is in our old '74 GMC horse van that sits idle for weeks at a time in the winter. The Spring start up ritual usually involves a cloud of debris flying out of the heater and defrost vents, clearing away bits of chewed paper from the glove box, and sometimes chasing mice out from under your feet. Last year I tried an old farmer's suggestion and soaked a couple of cotton balls in peppermint oil and stuck them in the defroster and heater openings. They were totally effective! Not a single shred of mouse evidence showed up after that, and the truck smelled like "Christmas" according to the kids.

=Vic= Bear Gap, PA

Wintergreen oil is another. And don't forget that exhaust pipe. A mouse will get into anyplace as long as it can get it's head through the opening. Essentially, any opening the size of a quarter or larger... and that's for an adult mouse.

I use kitty liter to soak up and fluid leaks, and I mix in crushed mothballs before spreading a fresh batch. Sorta creates an invisible protective shield.

Oh yes, the exhaust pipe! Another story about the 84 Capri: I had a small black lab that I mistakenly thought couldn't be house trained, so it lived in an insulated dog house in the garage. Of course I would place a bowl of dog food and a bowl of water in the garage. In the spring, I started the Capri and dog food started firing out of the exhaust pipe! No pedestrians were injured. :-) One day when I was sitting on the couch and the black lab came up to me, wagging her tail, my wife said; "Maggie is telling you that she wants to go outside". Duh on my part. She became a house dog after that. Good idea about mixing mothballs in with the kitty litter!

Dick