regarding Irish Spring as rodent repellant...

ChanW

Irish Spring soap, as a rodent repellant?

I think it's an old wives' tale. (Note the thoroughly nibbled bar of soap, right next to the battery box full of seed chaff)

RZRBUG

Sorry, Chan, but that's funny.  I use Gain original scent dryer sheets.  So far I haven't found any that have been chewed on.  Maybe they're using them for bedding material.  Actually, I park my T@B under an open shed at the edge of woods.  I use the dryer sheets liberally and change them often.  I also spread moth balls on the ground underneath.  So far (three years) I have not had any problems with rodents.

Nomad

In a couple of old, historical buildings I've shot, liberal use f dryer sheets. Spend too long inside though it gets a little nauseating.

ChanW

I'm used to it by now. The battles are endless, between me and the local fauna, either in our house or barn, the vehicles, or the Tab.

I'm sure I'm not winning, but it keeps me on my toes!

ericnliz

Have you tried training them to winterize, wash the T@B, or drive?  

Ratkity

If you look for the LoHo (Long, long honeymoon) blog on YouTube folks, they have the "Mouse Incident" in their Airstream. They are full-timers and do a wonderful blog. They are upbeat, funny and informative and would recommend their YouTube channel just for the entertainment. They aren't tiny trailer folks, but have lots of great information - the best was taking all the "home" remedies for the mouse problem and what their final solution was to get them out of their trailer (spoiler: the mice lived happily ever-after). 

Cyclonic

I have drier sheet in mine as well, but I think our lack of rodent problem has more to do with the feral cat problem in my neighborhood.

@Ratkity LoHo's mouse video is priceless.  Actually really like their stuff, very informative and entertaining.

Photomom

Ratkity said:

If you look for the LoHo (Long, long honeymoon) blog on YouTube folks, they have the "Mouse Incident" in their Airstream. They are full-timers and do a wonderful blog. They are upbeat, funny and informative and would recommend their YouTube channel just for the entertainment. They aren't tiny trailer folks, but have lots of great information - the best was taking all the "home" remedies for the mouse problem and what their final solution was to get them out of their trailer (spoiler: the mice lived happily ever-after). 

I've watched those and some of the episodes have been useful. They can be annoying, but not as annoying as the couple who've gotten bored with traveling in their gigantic motor home and have moved to a gigantic yacht. (Although that couple did travel with cats, which are an excellent mouse deterrent.)

Photomom

Cyclonic said:

I have drier sheet in mine as well, but I think our lack of rodent problem has more to do with the feral cat problem in my neighborhood.

Feral cats are not the problem. Idiot people are the problem. 

Nomad

Photomom - Couldn't watch a video by those two - They played way too perky and cute.

Cyclonic

@Photomom This is very true.  Fortunately we have good neighbors who have caught all of them and had them fixed, so it is not a continuing problem.

@PXLated What, you don't do cute and perky

Photomom

@Cyclonic, your neighbors are wonderful. 

ChanW

Maybe I should invite a feral cat to live in our Tab...

That ought to do it... (from stinky to stinkier!)

Ratkity

ChanW said:

Maybe I should invite a feral cat to live in our Tab...

That ought to do it... (from stinky to stinkier!)

*Imagines the inside of ChanW's T@B aka "The Scr@tching Post"*

ChanW

While we're on the subject, anyone have any ideas on how to get the mouse outhouse smell out of the air vents in a Tacoma? They must have set up house in there this spring. 

Continual battles... B-/

Verna

Odoban from Sam's Club. It took a terrible closed up, strange odor out of a used camper I had a few years ago. Just follow directions. Be sure to clean the headliner because odors stay in that. 

ChanW

Thanks Verna. I'll check it out.

Ratkity

Mouse pee is the 2nd hardest tinkle smell to get out (unaltered male cat pee is #1). If you can take off the front of the dash to get into the vents to run a flexible wire (like cabling wire runner) into the vents, that's your first battle. Light use of Dawn dish soap and water and a preliminary wash, then rinse is first step (gets debris out). 2nd - Go to a pet store (even the big box ones) to get an enzyme cleaner in the cat section for your 2nd cleaning pass. Let dry and sit overnight. I've used Odoban and it works on about every other smell (like mildew and other funky smells), but animal tinkle is special. If you want to use it, make it your 2nd pass and then make the pet odor enzyme cleaner the 3rd pass. 

Re-assemble dash. Make sure no extra parts are left over!

ChanW

Ratkity, "disassembly", that's what I was afraid of. 

I was hoping the threat of 'inviting a feral cat over to the house' might be enough to convince the mice to move out, cleaning up before they left...

No, huh?

Ratkity

Welll..... (incoming story!)

"There Ah wuz.... in grad skewl.... living in a 12'x45' Sovereign mobile home (complete with aluminum wiring) when Ah first turned on the oven. The smell wuz so horrendous! Apparently, some meeces has set up residence near the pilot light for warmth. Mah three katz at the time were all setting in front of the oven, salivating.

The only ones who et that night were the katz. Took meh forever to get that smell almost gone. Notice I sez "almost". Dem katz always luved it when Ah turned on the oven. Needless ta say, Ah didn't cook much in dere after dat. Ah became da Microwave and Crockpot Queen!"

ChanW

Hah! Smart meeses, maybe aren't so smart, eh!

Similar story, only we kept our rag box under the stove (Note the past tense, 'kept')

I smelled fabric burning, after lighting the oven, and found the rag box afire. All I could figure is that a flaming mouse had jumped into the rag box to get away...

Funny image. Not so funny for the poor mouse.

Very lucky us.

Ratkity

Isn't Mouse Flambé a delicacy somewhere?

Photomom

Ugh. We have an electrostatic filter on our furnace and once a mouse got fried on it. And worse, because air passes through it through the furnace into the ductwork, the whole house smelled like rotten burning rodent. 

Ratkity

Ew @Photomom! I don't think that's the recipe for Mouse Flambé.