Mouse nesting locations in the Prius Prime

Yeah, if killing one mouse makes others to retreat back to the woods, I wouldn't hesitate. But in our case, irradicating the natural population of deer mice on my property is not plausible. I nor my wife don't mind them hanging around on our property as long as they don't come into our car and start chewing wires. From what I have read, they do have home territory, but the range is very small. I took it back to the woods a few miles away, it is not likely to come back. On the other hand, I may be interested to do a trap-mark-release-recapture to find out the population density of this critter on my property. The method to estimate population density in a given area is known as Mark and Recapture.

 

UPDATE
In addition to the Flip N Slid 5 gal bucket type trap by Rinne shown on the comment #40, I now have 10 multi-catch mouse traps set around the parameter of the garage/barn and inside against foundation walls.



In addition to trapping mice and recording the number, I am also checking the mouse activities in the car daily by looking for (and counting) mouse droppings. I have had good streak of no mouse activity for over a week, but today I found one dropping on the wiper cowl. I will continue to monitor and keep the traps around garage/barn.

 

If I really want to be quantitative, I should use motion laser trigger sensors and IR cameras. But that would be rather expensive. So, the next closest thing is turd counting... or NOT...

The important thing is that I am still seeing some mouse activity in the engine bay... which means I can't let the guard down.

 

Hmm, the question is even if I have such a camera, where would I set it up to record the mouse activities in the engine bay? I have an old trail cam that I used to record the bear activity around the apiary. It worked very well for the surveillance of rather a wide area for a large intruder. Among the animals caught on the camera are bears, deer, raccoons, skunks, cats, and humans. The camera has a wide lens and motion detector to trigger IR photos or videos, but I doubt it works for a mouse.

 

I used glue traps first. They are not re-usable. Then I switched to live traps. So, no death smell. I am not sure if they can "smell" the previous death, but they definitely do "learn" to avoid the trap. It is a good idea to rotate several different traps for this reason. I am currently using 5 gal bucket traps the Flip N Slid 5 gal bucket type trap by Rinne and multi-catch mouse traps as commented on #43. Both can house multiple mice and no need to re-set the trap. But I check them daily to make sure to release mice if caught. Even in a live trap, under a stressful environment, they don't survive too long.

 

From what I have read, old fashion snap traps such as the Victor trap shown below are still in wide use, but they have several major drawbacks. It only catches one mouse at a time. And once triggered, it must be re-set each time. Disposing of a dead mouse is not easy and very messy. I for one, much rather deal with live mice in the trap and release them in the woods far away from my house than handle a dead mouse to dispose of it. It can sometimes injure the mouse but does not kill it. An injured mouse sometimes escapes the trap and dies in places inaccessible to remove the dead body. A single snap trap or even 2-3 traps are not enough to catch large numbers of mice. IMOH traps alone is not sufficient to control the mice infestation.


In our situation, the complete exclusion of mice from my property is impractical and almost impossible. I just need to reduce the number of mice in the areas near the car and monitor their activity in the cars to make sure that they are not exploring new nesting/hiding places in the cars as best as I can.

I have had a good stretch of 1 week without seeing activities in the cars, and 2 weeks since the last trapped mouse in and around the garage. My feeling is that the weather getting nice and warm, and they are now more comfortable living in their native habitats in the woods behind our house.

 

LOLLOL

Ever since our two dogs died, deer and other wildlife larger than mice took over our backyard. But so far, none has gained access to inside the garage and the house, just not yet.

We don't use deer repellent cream but have planted many deer repellent plants in our yard.

 

Yeah, we have the largest population of black bears of any state in the eastern U.S. They are the largest predators in our area. I don't think we have any mountain lions or alligators around here. I have encountered black bears on several occasions on my property. Although bear attacks are extremely rare and a fatal attack has never been reported in our state, we always wear bear bells and keep the bear spray handy when outside in our yard. There has been a bear coming right up to our deck next to our house at night, but the only damages they have caused so far are several honey bee hives and bird feeders destroyed. I now have all of the bee hives in an apiary enclosed by an electric fence and we put away all the bird feeders at night. Nothing to eat, they don't usually bother us.

That being said, just last week, I had set up several multi-mouse traps around the garage with bait. Have not caught any mice, but a couple of traps (made of metal) were mauled, probably by a bear. Yep, I removed all the bait from the traps. Not sure how effective they are now.

 

Thanks for sharing your delete-mouse success story. I agree with most of your points. The only thing to add is that the population dynamics of mice are different from one location to another. What works for one situation may or may not work for others. For me, native deer mice in the field are nothing new, I have no intention of controlling the general population in wild. All I want to do is to prevent them from entering a vehicle which was something I never had to deal with before. That being said, what boils down is the same triads of IPM (Integrated Pest Management) methods for successful control/management of the pest.

1. exclusion (by a physical barrier)
2. habitat modification (making it less attractive to live by cleaning and not storing food or nesting materials)
3. population reduction (by rodenticide or traps)

In my current case, after the initial dealing with a cohort of mice population in a nearby garage which is likely to be a group of mice from the sam dam thus sharing the territory range together, so far, I have not seen any "newcomers" moving into the garage or car parked nearby. It seems that their natural seasonal activity range makes garage or car not too attractive for now. I will see how these changes during colder months when they may seek warmth and shelter.

 

I can see foundation crawl space can be an ideal place for animals to hide and live if they have an access to it. Fortunately, I have not lived in a house with such crawl space. Our house has a full basement foundation and the garage is on a slab concrete foundation. But in terms of dealing with animal entry, the foundation vent seems to be easier to deal with than attic entry points.

While our garage has no attic the house has an attic with R64 insulation. That's almost 2 feet of pink fiberglass batt and loose cellulose blown on top. Small animals such as mice, bats, squirrels, snakes... and sometimes larger ones like raccoons can enter inside through holes made on the soffit of the eave.

We know there are some seasonal resident animals living in the attic during winter, because we often hear the sound coming through the ceiling. They seem to move out during summer when it gets too hot to live there. I really should inspect the entier eaves and close off any holes, but the soffit is made of thin vinyl, I have a feeling that even if I find an entry hole and plug it, they will just open a new one in no time. Probably have to replace the entire soffit with something stronger, but have not found a solution yet.