Hahaha! Waskally Wabbits! Elmer was a bad dude...
Yep! Good friends had a Prius with the mice in the cabin filter and even small squirrels under the hood. Tried about everything, but the thing that ended up working the best was the sticky traps. They once had two mice stuck on the same trap!
Funny story… my dog caught a rabbit and injured but did not kill it. Previously in the day, I was working outside and my wife grabbed me a hat that was a bit too small. Since the rabbit was not dead, but gravely injured, the most humane thing to do was to put it out of its misery. I went in and got my .22 and as I was carrying it out my wife started laughing. She said she thought it earlier, but now with the rifle too, I guess I reminded her of Elmer Fudd. And, on top of that, I was hunting rabbits. For the rest of the day I kept walking around saying, “Be vewy quiet we’re huntin’ wabbits. Hu hu hu hu.”
Best of luck!
Now THAT is funny! Really liked those older cartoon characters. My favorite was Wiley Coyote and Roadrunner! Pretty much liked them all though.
Thanks for this post. I had saved it, knowing that my gutter guards would be installed soon. They recently finished doing that and I saved a perfect piece of scrap. I just installed it on my vent and my little project is now complete.This appears to be the most current "critter" thread, so I'll add my story here. After noticing a funky smell in my Mav for a couple of weeks I suspected an invasion, particularly after reading of others' experiences here and on a couple of older threads. A obvious first stop was the cabin air filter—the subject of lots of rodent reports.
Sure enough, when I accessed it I could see something was amiss. I had a hard time pulling it out intact, as there was a sizable nest atop it. (One clue was a bit of that nest on the passenger floor before I opened up the filter housing.) After I got the filter out and vacuumed up all the nesting material (obviously harvested from the filter itself and some of the surrounding noise insulation batting, but fortunately no wiring), I discovered a very desiccated mouse, which had fallen into the squirrel-cage fan (rather appropriate terminology) as I pulled out the filter; I carefully extracted it with some long tweezers. The photo below shows the culprit on the well-chewed filter (sans nest).
Since my truck spends most of its life in my heated garage, I suspect the mouse got into the garage last winter and decided the truck was a nice place to set up housekeeping. (Fortunately, it seems to have been a bachelor, not a pregnant female.) The only definitive entry point I could find in the threads I read was the cabin vent behind the rear seat; one post shows rodent damage on the one-way flappers in this vent:
https://www.mavericktruckclub.com/forum/threads/mice-rodent-entry-point-behind-rear-seat.23845/
Fearing similar damage myself, I accessed mine; it was untouched, but I could easily see how a mouse could get underneath one of the flappers. That same post shows a fix, consisting of forming some 1/4" hardware cloth around the back of the vent to prevent entry. I thought that a good idea, so I removed my vent (it's just held in place by 4 tabs; squeeze these and you can push it out toward the back and then angle it back into the cab through the opening). After looking in vain for some hardware cloth in my junk collection I found a chunk of aluminum gutter guard that I figured would serve as well. I cut a piece of it to fit, and hot-melt glued it to the back of the vent (photos of front and modified back of vent). My version is flat against the vent frame and doesn't allow the flappers to open as wide as the hardware-cloth fix in the post above, but it still provides ample airflow.
In the aforementioned discussion threads, there were lots of suggested deterrents, but no real info on other obvious entry points other than the above vent (and presumably once inside the truck, through the floor vents of the HVAC system). Since my mouse was atop the cabin air filter (i.e. on the inlet side of the system), I wonder how it got there via the above route(s). (I suppose it could have squeezed past the squirrel cage in the fan; it chewed a big enough hole in the filter to have accessed the top from underneath.) Does anyone know of other likely entry points from the outside of the truck, either large enough for a mouse (dime- to nickel-sized opening) or easily chewed through?
I don't think there is a vehicle on the plant that I haven't seen a video showing rodent problems, sad as that statement is. Why manufactures don't do more to mitigate these problems is beyond me.This appears to be the most current "critter" thread, so I'll add my story here. After noticing a funky smell in my Mav for a couple of weeks I suspected an invasion, particularly after reading of others' experiences here and on a couple of older threads. A obvious first stop was the cabin air filter—the subject of lots of rodent reports.
Sure enough, when I accessed it I could see something was amiss. I had a hard time pulling it out intact, as there was a sizable nest atop it. (One clue was a bit of that nest on the passenger floor before I opened up the filter housing.) After I got the filter out and vacuumed up all the nesting material (obviously harvested from the filter itself and some of the surrounding noise insulation batting, but fortunately no wiring), I discovered a very desiccated mouse, which had fallen into the squirrel-cage fan (rather appropriate terminology) as I pulled out the filter; I carefully extracted it with some long tweezers. The photo below shows the culprit on the well-chewed filter (sans nest).
Since my truck spends most of its life in my heated garage, I suspect the mouse got into the garage last winter and decided the truck was a nice place to set up housekeeping. (Fortunately, it seems to have been a bachelor, not a pregnant female.) The only definitive entry point I could find in the threads I read was the cabin vent behind the rear seat; one post shows rodent damage on the one-way flappers in this vent:
https://www.mavericktruckclub.com/forum/threads/mice-rodent-entry-point-behind-rear-seat.23845/
Fearing similar damage myself, I accessed mine; it was untouched, but I could easily see how a mouse could get underneath one of the flappers. That same post shows a fix, consisting of forming some 1/4" hardware cloth around the back of the vent to prevent entry. I thought that a good idea, so I removed my vent (it's just held in place by 4 tabs; squeeze these and you can push it out toward the back and then angle it back into the cab through the opening). After looking in vain for some hardware cloth in my junk collection I found a chunk of aluminum gutter guard that I figured would serve as well. I cut a piece of it to fit, and hot-melt glued it to the back of the vent (photos of front and modified back of vent). My version is flat against the vent frame and doesn't allow the flappers to open as wide as the hardware-cloth fix in the post above, but it still provides ample airflow.
In the aforementioned discussion threads, there were lots of suggested deterrents, but no real info on other obvious entry points other than the above vent (and presumably once inside the truck, through the floor vents of the HVAC system). Since my mouse was atop the cabin air filter (i.e. on the inlet side of the system), I wonder how it got there via the above route(s). (I suppose it could have squeezed past the squirrel cage in the fan; it chewed a big enough hole in the filter to have accessed the top from underneath.) Does anyone know of other likely entry points from the outside of the truck, either large enough for a mouse (dime- to nickel-sized opening) or easily chewed through?
