I have been have mouse problems. A few weeks ago my brother and I were at the "family place" in central Texas doing some maintenance and painting. I decided to fire up the old gas grill to burn some burgers for dinner. I have had problems before with mice colonizing the grill. During the drought a few years back I lit the grill and a flaming mouse dropped out of the bottom and ran for the tinder dry woods. Afraid that I might be responsible for burning down the county, I chased down the poor mouse and put it out of its misery before it made it to the woods. So this time I opened the grill to carefully inspect it and sure enough, there was a resident mouse.
We tried to get it to leave but it ran down under the gas jets and would not come out. Well, you asked for it mouse, I lit the burners. Our burgers did not taste any different in the end. The next morning I opened up my old minivan and found the front seat and floor covered with shredded peppermint wrappers and mouse droppings. I keep a stash of restaurant style peppermints in the door bin to eat while driving occasionally. I cleaned up the mess and wrote it off as "revenge" of the mouse clan. I never figured out how the mouse got in. Fast forward to this last Saturday. I had just driven back from another work session at the family property the day before. Again, the front seat was covered in shredded peppermint wrappers and mouse droppings. Oh no, they followed me home. A quick search on line to find natural ways to discourage mice.
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Natural methods for getting rid of mice include the use of deterrents like strong smells that drive the mice away. Peppermint and used kitty litter are both known to be effective mouse deterrents.
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I do not have a source of used kitty litter and did not want to put that in the car anyway. As for peppermint, well obviously I am dealing with defective mice here. Time to get out the mouse traps. I had a live trap I wanted to see how effective it was and an old Victor spring trap. I put peanut butter on the spring trap trigger pad and on the inside of the live trap. I put the live trap in the car and the spring trap under it. The next morning the spring trap was still set but the peanut butter was cleaned off real well. Hmm, not very sensitive. Inside the car, the live trap was somehow rolled over and closed but the peanut butter was all there. The defective mouse had managed to set it off without reaping the rewards inside. It tried to chew its way in but gave up. I wedged a cashew into the trigger pad of the spring trap. That worked this time. So now that the mouse was gone, it was time to vacuum out the the van of mint wrappers and mouse droppings and find a hole. A gasket around a cable had pulled loose from the fire wall under the dash allowing free passage so I re-seated that. Much to my surprise I started to find whole unwrapped and un-chewed but sticky peppermints stashed in nooks and crannies all over the inside of van. There were a bunch wedged between the cushions of the back seat that was folded up and hidden beneath the cargo deck in back. There were more in the floor wells where the middle seat locks in. The strange revenge of the mouse clan.