[V6-12v] Rodent problem...more

[Steve Sears]

Craig,
As owner of a couple of seldom used cars, and one near-parts car that I
can't bear to break up, I understand your consternation.
Both of my DKW's have been attacked by rats and mice, and I have found
walnuts (!!) from a nearby tree in the engine compartment of my 1980 Audi.
I have tried the following:
1. Warfarin,Ratak, etc. - pretty good at wiping out the local varmints - but
they seem to die in very hard to reach places and stink/biodegrade/get
partially eaten by other varmints (there's a corpse in my '64 DKW I noticed
last weekend - looks like the flies got him - YEEESH!)
2. Electronic Pest Repellers - some people say they work.  I say not.  I
actually found a mouse corpse about 3 feet from an active "sonic repelling
device" - see 1, above.  Hey, I bought a K&N too......but that's another
thread...
3. Cat/snake/other mouse eating critters - vet bills cut into the Audi parts
budget (there's a budget?), but when I was a kid, we had an ex-barn cat as a
pet.  It had a huge killing zone around the house - brought back the kill so
you could say "good kitty" before it tortured/killed/ate.
Mice/rats/moles/voles(evil critters)/chipminks/squirrels/rabbits - they all
died horrible deaths around our house (he also squared up against
skunks/other cats/muskrats/groundhogs and escaped a bobcat (he was a big
cat) - but, once again, the vet made a good share of his living repairing
our varmint killer).  Unlike 1, above, you can leave out and not worry about
the kids.  Urban settings are not so friendly so life expectancies will be
shorter...
4. Mouse traps - the spring traps are fun - and seem to find their way into
every place that you are blindly reaching.  Emptying them is fun too,
especially if you seldom check your trapline.  The glue traps are not for
the faint of heart either - you have the choice of squishing the critter
yourself (oooh, that's cold), or putting it into a garbage bag and letting
it starve to death (oooh, that's cold).  Let the machine do the dirty work,
I say.  My trapline has not caught anything in my garage yet, and the
peanuts in the jaws of the traps are looking pretty nasty.
5. Irish Spring soap/drier sheets/etc - anything with a bigtime scent - the
cheaper the better.  I littered the floor of the passenger compartment of my
'62 DKW with bars of IS and Noname drier sheets.  I found mouse droppings on
the floor subsequent to the installation - no worky.  But hey, I sound like
Jackie Stewart when I sit in the driver's seat....
6. Mothballs - have heard great things about using these, but unless you
enjoy the smell of mom's linen closet, you'll have to let the car air out
for about a week after de-mothballing.  I'll be replacing the Irish Spring
with Mothballs this winter - will keep you posted.
7. Physical barriers - I've had good results with keeping the mice out of
the exhaust system by jamming steel wool in the tailpipe of the '62 DKW.
Just remember to remove the plug or you'll be reinacting the banana scene
from Beverly Hills Cop.
Good luck with your efforts to stave off nature from your prized posessions.
I'm contemplating buying one of those "Bio Bugs" they are advertising,
outfitting it with a laser, and have it run amok in our garage.
Cheers!
Steve Sears
1987 5kTQ (hot, and mouse free)
1980 5k (tarped, and littered with walnut shells)
1962 (in garage - on the "Front Line" of the battle) and '64 (behind
garage - casualty of war)Auto Union DKW Junior deLuxes
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