Mice in engine bay

[fleabag]

I decided that I wanted to work on my car, well specifically I wanted to charge the battery and move it. I popped the hood only to discover two mice living in my engine bay. I have found what appears to be crumbs from what they ate including acorn shells and urine, I don't know if they crapped there or not but I would not be surprised if they did. I'm quite annoyed and I'm wondering how to approach resolving this issue. I left the hood open overnight and I'm hoping they'll leave. I don't know how to clean this since they very well could be diseased, I was thinking of misting the engine bay with the hose first and then washing it. The worst part of it all is that the urine and their crap is on the car battery which is only a year old and possibly needs warranty replacement.


Anyhelp?

 

[Colt45]

carwash?

 

[PCMarine]

eat and crap in their engine bay

 

[andylawcc]

cat

/end thread

 

[amdhunter]

Holy shit dude, I just posted about my rat problem just now. WTF is up with rats lately?

 

[TekViper]

rats love to chew the insulation off wires. i have seen many cases where rodents have caused significant damage to the wiring. i would spray some repelant under the hood and around the car asap, they can really make things ugly fast. crap and urine are the least of your concerns.

 

[Zenmervolt]

d-CON or a cat. As TekViper said, rats and other rodents can do serious damage to cars. At the very least, try some repellents. Anything to get them out of there.

ZV

 

[fleabag]

Originally posted by: TekViper
rats love to chew the insulation off wires. i have seen many cases where rodents have caused significant damage to the wiring. i would spray some repelant under the hood and around the car asap, they can really make things ugly fast. crap and urine are the least of your concerns.

Since the battery is dead, I can't imagine they'd be chewing on the wires. Since there is no electricity going through, they wouldn't be getting that "tingling" sensation you'd get otherwise, right?

 

[programmer]

mothballs

 

[Pacfanweb]

I second what TekViper said. I've also seen many cases of rodents (mice, squirrels) eating up wiring and causing all sorts of problems that are not cheap to fix.

 

[Zorba]

I replaced my fuel filter a couple months ago, I had to pull the back seat out to disconnect the fuel pump. When I pulled out the seat I saw evidence of mice, not recently probably from before I bought it. That had screwed up a lot of the padding on the seat and they chewed all the insulation off a couple of wires. I have no idea how those wires never shorted out.

I've seen the damage of mice in other cars too. They will eat wire insulation like mad and they nest in anything foamy like seat padding, or the lining on the inside of the hood.

 

[Thump553]

You're not the only one with this problem:

Mice in engine compartment

Mice-02 sensor

mice - carburater

 

[91TTZ]

Originally posted by: Zenmervolt
d-CON or a cat. As TekViper said, rats and other rodents can do serious damage to cars. At the very least, try some repellents. Anything to get them out of there.

ZV

We need to be careful here... he didn't state what kind of car he had. If the car is a Honda Civic, putting rat poison in the engine bay could very well kill the hamster that's powering the car.