Let’s start with this: If you discover a sure-fire way to keep mice and rodents out of your car, patent it and make millions. It almost literally follows the old adage, “Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door.” Besides the obvious of not wanting a rodent in your car, the little miscreants eat wires and leave a disease-ridden mess. You want to get them out and keep them out — but there really isn’t one proven way to keep rodents out of your car. However, there are several things you can try, and while one might not be completely effective, it’s possible a combination might work better.
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Why Rodents Get in Cars
To a rodent, your car makes for a very attractive home. They’re seeking shelter and tight openings that don’t allow larger predators to get at them, and that describes both the interior and many spaces under the hood. Rodents also like to gnaw on the wires — probably to keep their teeth from growing too long, though some insist they like the soy-based insulation now being used — and there’s plenty to be found. And inside, there’s a lot of convenient nest-building material in the form of what we call “seats.”
In the case of mice, you’re fighting a critter that can get through a pencil-size hole as a youth and a dime-sized hole as a full-size adult. There are any number of such holes through a car’s firewall that pass between the engine compartment and the interior (for wires and cables), and the ventilation system provides a similar passageway. Gaps around the doors and rust holes in the floor are other potential sources of interior entry. Getting into the engine compartment — for either a mouse or something larger, like a squirrel — is a piece of cake.
How to Keep Rodents From Getting Under the Hood
You can’t.
Some of the following deterrents may help drive an ensconced rodent from your car, but that may have to be done with traps — which is really outside our scope here. However, if the car is in a garage, traps along the walls are a strong first defense.
Even cars that have solid underbody pans for aerodynamics leave holes around the suspension system that any small rodent can get through, so this is a nonstarter. But there are several things you can do to make your vehicle less attractive.
- Leaving the hood open: While this may sound counterintuitive and is probably only practical if the car is garaged, leaving the hood open takes away some of the protection from larger animals that smaller rodents crave. Note that you should disconnect the under-hood light (if your vehicle has one) so your battery doesn’t run down.
- Light: Mice are nocturnal (meaning they sleep during the day and forage for food at night), and they don’t much care for light. LED lights are a boon for this, as they use only about a seventh of the power of the old incandescent bulbs and don’t get hot. You could even try laying a trouble light with an LED bulb on the floor of your garage under the center of the hood area, as you can have your car’s wheels straddle it when you drive in.
- Noise: There are any number of sonic rodent repellers on the market, both plug-in and battery-operated, and they are pretty much “set and forget.” Some include strobes that add a “bright light” factor. Although they’re claimed to be silent to people and normal pets, they’re hardly universally admired. A cheaper solution may be plugging in a radio, possibly to a timer (in the case of mice, they’re probably away from the car at night), but unlike the repellers, that won’t be silent.
- Smell: As with sonic repellers, there are a lot of scented products that are claimed to repel mice and other rodents. Besides pre-packaged ones, the most recommended seem to be peppermint oil (which can be sprayed around), cedar (long known to repel moths; Western Red cedar is recommended in particular), cloves, Pine-Sol, cayenne pepper, Irish Spring soap, cinnamon, moth balls and dryer sheets (Bounce has been cited by name). Particularly in the interior, some of these options are going to be less annoying than others — and maybe even pleasant. However, many lose their strong scent over time and have to be periodically replaced.
- Physical deterrent: Start and move the car often, so that the relatively frequent disturbance will discourage these visitors from building a nest over time. (It’s sometimes recommended to honk the horn or play the radio loud before starting the engine, as the noise may get them to vacate before some moving part can injure them.) Gaps and holes can be covered with metal screening or filled with steel wool or tin foil. You could also lay a rubber snake on the ground, but make sure you tell other household members you’ve done so first to avoid surprising them.
If protecting wires from rodents is your main goal, you can wrap metal screening around them. Honda manufactures a highly promoted special tape that is supposedly impregnated with hot-tasting capsaicin; it can be purchased at a dealership or online.
Lastly, there are also now mouse contraceptives available. If they work, it won’t be immediately (the lifespan of a mouse being about 1-2 years), but at least there may be fewer and fewer mice over time.
And if all else fails, you can always get a cat.
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