Home Forums Gear Hunting Trucks and Four-Wheel Drives Rodent in heating system

They infested my truck a year ago. I was gone to Africa for a few months and had my truck in the barn out of the weather.

There was a grain storage bin next to the barn and a dog kennel on the other side. Two huge mistakes that have since been solved by selling the dog, so I can use poison now, and running the grain out of the bins and moving them.

The Mice built a packed nest in the air cleaner box, then totally packed into the area under the windshield wipers below the black plastic grate in front of the windshield. They chewed the 1/2" thick felt that was layered over the firewall for nesting material.

After all this was completely cleaned and spotless, We could still smell mice in the truck. Washed cleaned and did everything possible to the seats and carpet.
This is our road trip vehicle for pulling my camper or boat. We spend hours a day on the road traveling. No freaking way we could live with this! There were no mice in the sealed heating unit, none in the cab. While searching under the truck for a way they could get in I found that they had totally filled the box frame on both sides with corn. They also filled in the space in the body between the doors( double cab) this goes up over the top of the truck across the roof! My entire length of the trucks box frame was filled with corn!

There are oval cut outs along the sides of the frame for drainage which were filled with grass and fibers. I used the big Wet dry vac to suck out all the corn I could, At about the 5 gallon point is was mostly out. I also bought a 3' snake arm video camera to see what was in there. I found several nests with dead mice and a hundred dried baby mice. I eventually duct taped a 1/2" diameter hose to the bigger wet dry vac hose to snake it in there and get the remaining dead dried babies and moldy wet nesting stuff. Along with black goo that was likely at one time a mouse or 10. After which I used my pressure washer with the front end of the truck about 3 foot higher then the back to drain out. The amount of stuff that came out after I thought I had it clean was simply unbelievable! I also screened in my airbox to become 100% sealed from mice now.

This was a messy nasty disgusting fix. I have since installed 6 of those metal multi catch traps one on each side of the over head doors. Then added boxes with strychnine poison for moles at strategic places. Also adding a dozen cheap snap traps, and 3 Havahart number "0" traps. In the first week there were dozens of dead mice on the floor from the strychnine. This is not the crap warfarin homeowner product, this is bad stuff, eating this causes death in a minute or so. Never to be used above ground or in the open. Or where a dog could get a mouse that had just eaten it!

Over the course of the next three months I had a five gallon bucket with water in the bottom for drowning the live catch mice dumped in. The bucket was filling with mice. I was catching 6-8 per day for months! I have not caught a mouse now in two months. On the outside of the building I now have 5' of gravel along the outside walls and use roundup monthly to prevent any weeds there. any mouse now will have to cross that open space. I have pulled the poison out and now only have traps. Any mouse trotting in the open along the outside wall is gonna be picked off by the barn owls now!

My shop/barn building in now mine again. I felt is was like taking back a community from a gang!