Monte knows all about "Friskies," my resident rodent.
I named him that because he loves kibble and I was hoping that he would become Friskies cat food.
When I lived closer to Winnemucca, I had no issues with mice. But since I developed my property and put a home on it in the spring of 2023, Friskies and friends have damaged both my Toyota 4Runner and Subaru Outback.
In my 4Runner, I've found the cabin air filter difficult to remove from all the detritus of their nesting. Pulling out the filter resulted in the blower basket full of said detritus thus lengthy and tedious work with the shop vac to remove.
In my Subaru, they've yanked out about 45% of the insulation and covering of the blanket that is factory mounted to the firewall.
In both vehicles, I've found stashes of dog and cat food kibble, even in the large capacity engine air filter box of the 4Runner.
To date, I've not experienced any mechanical or electrical issues due to the mice.
What so far has worked for me:
Feral cats. Before I had my home manufactured and brought in, I trapped four feral cats from my old home and brought to my property. I have two outbuildings, one of which has a sizeable porch. I kept food in a gravity feeder and water in a 1.5 gallon, heated pet bowl on the covered porch of my large cabin shed. I installed a trail camera so that I could check on their activity and numbers, plus any unexpected visitors. In time, I found Friskies coming to visit regularly. Even showing up within a minute or two of a cat. He'd grab and run. Sometimes in a single night I'd have well over a hundred photos of Friskies. I soon started calling my porch "Friskies' Diner." In time, attrition took its toll and all but one of my original four cats disappeared. So I imported nine more from a friend of my wife's. All ended up emigrating to my neighbor about 750' to the west last spring. So since I was only feeding Friskies so stopped putting out food (I kept the water out for the birds and my laying hens, Friskies is far too small to get into the bowl). Since then, feral cat population has exploded down at my neighbors and now they are starting to return in numbers sufficient to start feeding them here again.
Dryer sheets. Yes, if you do an internet search, you will find an overwhelming negative view of them. But they work for me. I asked around and the success rate locally is high. So I stuff a dozen or so under the hood of both vehicles and replace them quarterly.
Ultrasonic. I was skeptical, but found a cheap set of two Chinese units online through Walmart. I put one under the hood of each vehicle. Easy to mount, hook directly to your vehicle's battery. My units emit ultrasound continuously. Every minute or so it cycles through making several bursts of an electronic sound akin to a screech owl or hawk, along with a light show from six LED units. Instructions are vague, poorly translated to English and doesn't match the unit. I stumbled upon my settings and have left them. They've been in the vehicle for more than six months and still work fine. It sounds funny going out in the morning to open my sheds and gates, free the chickens and hear my Subaru and 4Runner "talk" to each other, as one starts squawking and then the other responds.
Here is a short video I made about one of them.
drive.google.com
Since putting in dryer sheets and ultrasound devices, I haven't seen any mouse activity in either vehicle.
