Good ol' country livin'...........with more mouse surprises

[CathyA]

We thought we had taken care of the squirrel/mouse problem in the crawl space. I thought I saw one mouse poop on the stove this morning......but it's hard to tell when there's flax seed in the bread.

Anyhow, DH was fixing coffee and said "there's something in the stove hood fan." Bummer. Not again. He gently started to pull down the filter while I was ready to catch it in a big paper bag. Yeah right. Silly us. It jumped down and the next 15 minutes were spent chasing it. We finally got it into the entranceway, closed off the door to the rest of the house, opened up the outside door and it ran out. YAY!
But.......how did it get in there? We have a secure vent on the roof which is caulked well. DH will go on the roof later to see if they've chewed through it. But.........I'm sure there's other ways to get into that fan area, other than the duct, right? I'm not sure of the possibilities.
So, once again lots of cleaning to do. Too bad they're so darned cute.

[lessisbest]

I grew up in the country and mice in a 100+ year old home was "normal", but having outdoor cats helped keep them in check a bit. My father filled cracks with steel woo,l which mice don't seem to like to chew through.

If you have pack rats outdoors, they will crawl under your car hood and chew the wiring because it's made with a corn derivative. Our friends solved that problem by leaving the hoods up on their cars - who knew :0!.

[CathyA]

Hi lessisbest......
I use highly scented dryer sheets in our deckboxes and shed and it seems to keep them away. I've used steel wool too. I think we need to wrap the whole house in steel wool!
I've had regular mice and/or squirrels chew the wiring in my car too. If I see a squirrel go under my car in the driveway from my kitchen window, I'll get my car remote and "lock" it......which makes a loud beep and they run away. haha