Autumn. Time to check vehicles for mice and rats

I've just cleaned a mouse nest out of my Hilux heater box and fan.
I burned out the fan and had a minor under dash fire two years ago with the same problem.

The truck lives in a dry farm shed and near to a river.
So the rats and mice start being a problem in autumn.

I heard a bit of flapping in the fan recently and stopped using it until it was cleaned out.
Vacuumed and blew everything out with compressed air while it was open

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Just a little pre Easter reminder to check for the unexpected things that can ruin a road trip.
Happy travels

The Hilux fan only has 3 small slot head bolts that come out to get good access to vacuum it out.
Mostly they build up in the fan and stop it turning
You can blow compressed air back down all the outlets and you will get most of their building materials out

So if you ever hear a flashing or clicking sound in the fan body don't keep running it.
When it stops and shorts out the smell is horrendous and you will be driving around for a month with the windows open no matter how cold it is

applies to caravans and motorhomes too!

Farm machinery
Quads and side by sides

The little buggers are pretty relentless at wrecking things

Yep, my tractor is checked every time b4 I start it for mice nests or birds' nests. Starlings are particulary suspect the filthy shits. Very common cause of machinery fires.

Neighbour down the road had his fan stop working, 1.5 days labour to pull the entire dash out to get to the air diverter thingamee inside the dash - mouse had got in and died in it and jammed the flap over one side. That burned the actuator motor out, which gave the computer a dose of the "oh my god I can't reach you about your extended warranty" and it shut the entire climate control setup down.

I didn't have the heart to ask what the entire bill was, but being able to pull it out with three screws sounds much cheaper.

Had to get a dead mouse out from a heater in a Daimler XJ6 many years ago.
The owner noticed 'this funny smell in the car'. I knew what it was...hard to forget the smell of dead rodent.
Anyway, 11 hours later the dashboard was removed so that I could (finally) get the heater out. Seems that's the normal time for the factory guys to do the same job too...so I wasn't just dragging the job out.
Remove mouse, clean heater box, etc.
Then put it all back together again.
Sod of a job, but at least it smelt nice now.

The little pricks are everywhere. Must be a bad year for them. They keep taking the baits yet I keep having them up in the ceiling running racetracks at night:omg:

Wife has caught 12 (almost 1 a day) so far with one trap in our attached car garage. Have never had numbers like that before.
Thankfully we checked in our one access point into our ceiling and the traps and poison there are untouched. We refreshed those.

Usually they run around in the ceiling space between our downstairs and second storey and the cat goes mental trying to work out what's going on.
Having them in the ceiling of a 2 story house is a big worry wrt to the electrical wiring which is impossible to access if they chew through any of it.

Still, as they say, if you've got mice you haven't got rats, and vice versa, I think....

Well, we get samples of everything here courtesy the flea bus. Rats are all XOS sized (fed up on avocados) and mice are a mix of tiny popcorn snack sized right up to 'crossbred with rats' sized. Bastards one and all.

much as i'm not a fan of felines we've got a demon one here and as the rat/mouse or even starling season approaches i park machinery near the house and so far not a nest anywhere (touch wood)

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Originally Posted by zimmer

...they run around in the ceiling space between our downstairs and second storey and the cat goes mental trying to work out what's going on...

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I can fully relate to that. We had a rat running round in exactly the same place in our previous house. We were just about to list it for sale so thought I better sort the rat out. Took out the bulbs in a few recessed lights and tossed a few baits up there. Problem solved I thought.

Three days before the first open home, my wife noticed something moving on the tiles. It was actually maggots falling out of a light housing. Luckily, they stopped appearing just in time for the open home.

Had a rat go under the bonnet of our newish hyundai ate the rubber in places . Apparently hyundais are notiorus for it as the wiring loom is made from soy.

Had a rat at our place that ended up getting quite brave was sleeping one night and got awoken by wife screaming her head off, went out to the lounge and she's standing on the couch and the rat is out on the deck with his little front feet up on the glass of the ranch slider peering inside, didn't seem to give a shit about the racket she was making. Tried traps and poisons and all sorts but kept seeing it around. Drove down to Te Anau one night and wife wanted to stop at Kmart in Queenstown so she went in and I waited in the truck. Then herd some rustling around coming from the engine bay so I got out and popped the bonnet and there's me old mate staring back at me from the chateau de rat he had built under the bonnet. He ended up scurrying away down into the depths of the engine bay then plopped on the ground and headed straight towards Kmart and in through the big open doors. Wonder if he still lives there hahahaha

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Originally Posted by zimmer

Yep, my tractor is checked every time b4 I start it for mice nests or birds' nests. Starlings are particulary suspect the filthy shits. Very common cause of machinery fires.

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one of our clients this season had his 6430 Johnny completely gutted withe fire mowing a hay paddock - said he checked it but its likely hay build up around battery - could not believe the damage it wrote of his mower and front end loader as well- cab was totally gutted

Last year..
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well good thing it was not a johnny

95% sure it was due to rats or mice chewing wiring. 1st guess is always a birds nest but fire started in the dash. Had been mowing for a few hours and thought I could smell plastic burning a couple of times, stopped and had a look around, thought maybe mower was hitting the skirt as seen that before. Carried on then at a certain point plastic smoke just started pouring out of the dash and by the time I got over to the water trough flames were coming out the side. Bloody fire extinguisher was dead, been sitting in there for years and probably never checked. Scary how fast it went

yes we had a baler go a few years back doing hay- bearing over heated- driver could not get it out- only good point was it was one of our older single balers and not one of our big Krone combis

Bloody cab heaters!

Had a mouse build a nest in the air con filter housing in my Colorado , easy fix but then found that they had chewed a few wires, into auto sparky , relatively cheap fix but he suggested that i tie a rat bait somewhere under the bonnet . The thought is they come in , have a feed on the bait as it is a bit more attractive to them then bugga off n die . It has worked so far , on new HiLux i have had no issues over last 2yrs ive had it and its parked in the workshop/implement shed .