[Formerly Steve Wilkinson]

Also be sure to close, seal or tape up the heat-exchanger air-inlet flappers, which rodents love to use as a front door to their winter home. And don't believe a word you hear about all the urban-myth home remedies to keep mice away, if you live in a heavily mice-infested area, like most rural country. Dryer sheets, mothballs, cats, fox pee concentrate, magic elixers found on line, mint leaves...you might just as well leave a perimeter of farts. I've tried them all, except for the farts. Physical barriers might work--tennis balls in the exhaust tailpipes, etc.--but probably not. I had to reinstall a near-new headliner awhile ago because mice had entered the bodywork somewhere, climbed up the hollow B pillars, and established nests between the roof and the headliner. And this was on a car stored in a barn on the inside of a solid perimeter of mothballs, with "special" tractor-cab anti-mouse sachets in the cabin, which I bought for some $25 because farmers swore by 'em.

Your best defense against mice is, when you come back, 1/rigorously inspect the entire trunk area for rodent nests, particularly behind the panel that shields the heating/ventilating ductwork, and around the fuel tank. 2/Assume you'll have a nest or two inside the rocker-panel hot-air channels, which will be unpleasant but ultimately harmless, other than a blizzard of nest material and tiny turds the first ime you turn on the fan. 3/And most important, pull the fan/alternator unit out far enough that you'll be able to Shopvac out the nest or two you'll find atop the cylinder fins.

Or, spread some panther piss and be happy, don't worry...