Outdoor Mice Issue?

I live next to a wooded area that I know has mice. I've seen them on my back porch (along with chipmunks, squirrels, rabbits, and deer in the yard). I only took action when a mouse moved into the car I drive every day. My husband caught that one (actually just with his hand in a gardening glove) and put him back onto the hill. The way I see it - rodents live outdoors. That's their home. I leave them alone in their home, and for the most part, they leave me alone in mine. I do not worry about hanta virus.

i'm a little taken aback by a fear of your 'entire property being contaminated.'

that's an awfully big leap.

you're not 'risking your family' by checking a car for infestation.

with this degree of anxiety about a remote possibility, i'd call in an exterminator.

it's an extreme reaction to a single mouse sighting, but better than going hanta.

i have three 'barn' cats and a couple of unwelcome cat visitors, and my barn and potting shed still have mice. if they bugged me to this degree i'd put out snap traps. i don't use poison because i don't want my cats and songbirds poisoned, and glue traps are the nastiest thing there is.

but you don't leave yourself many options, do you?
khairete
S.

I'd say your anxiety about this is getting the best of you. Mice nesting in cars for the winter is pretty common here in New England. My son in law is planning on evicting a mouse nest from his jeep this week and that vehicle has only been parked for 2 weeks. Just wear gloves and you'll be fine.

Also if you are seeing them close to the house then you might want to check around for mouse droppings in the house and use snap traps if you see evidence of them being inside. Glue traps are horrible, poison is dangerous around the kids and pets, and trap and release gives them a chance to get back in the house.

It sounds like your car has a mouse nest in it...you definitely need to take care of this problem. Just wear gloves if you are worried. I'm from New Mexico where Hanta Virus is very common in mice and I have cleaned up a huge mouse infestation when we redid our kitchen. I wore gloves...cleaned it all out...set up traps...cleaned the area with bleach afterwards. All was fine. I think you are worrying too much. It's not that big of a deal. I have also spent a year doing rodent population research using live traps. I would weight them, tag them, etc...it was for a guy's graduate school research. I just wear gloves and wash my hands afterwards. If you are too worried then hire an exterminator. But you definitely need to get rid of the mice....they can chew things and really damage that car you are trying to sell. After the mice are gone just wipe down the car with clorox wipes. PS - Where you see them as scary and a danger I see them as cute! I love mice! But not in my house....or car. Nope. I have no problem buying snap traps. We have a cat that loves to hunt now so we never get mice anymore.

Perhaps I am stupid, so you have mice in your engine, do you clean your engine often? Unless your car is crazy old or you leave the doors and windows open they are not, in the car, in the sense most of us think.

We have a cat and although we do have mice in our garage the cat has never found a victim. What I am saying is they don't get in the house.

I'm with mynewnickname. I don't have anxiety - so not trying to downplay what you are feeling, but I live in the woods and we have deer, squirrels even the odd coyote can be heard at night. We don't really interact with them, but they are in our woods.

Every fall, we get about 5 mice that we need to trap. We just clean up any droppings, and the problem is taken care of in about a week. This happens to nearly every one we know of in our area. I've never heard of anyone catching the virus if that helps.

Outside I can't imagine the virus really spreading, as Diane mentions. You'd have to stir up a nest with droppings, etc. I think and the chances of that, with an infected mouse, especially on the east coast .. pretty slim.

I get you're worried (my mom worries that my kids will get tics from our deer - she has anxiety) - but knowing as many people as I do who have had mice in their homes, with no problem (other than having to trap them), I think you're ok.

I'd just get your husband if you don't want to, to wear gloves and a mask (if it helps you) and get him to check your car - just so they haven't gotten in and aren't doing any damage.

I really wouldn't worry about the hantavirus. Since 1993, New Hampshire has never had a reported case. Not one (according to the CDC website). Vermont has had 2, and Maine has had 1. This is the total number of reported cases since 1993.

I would be concerned about a mouse (or more than one) making a nest in your car. It is very possible that they could start chewing on the electrical wires. You might want to ask someone about that.

Take a deep breath....I lived in North Texas the summer there was a Hanta outbreak in New Mexico within 50 miles of where I was living. The outbreak was on a reservation where the mice were living in the homes with the people and they were sweeping up droppings on a daily basis (off dirt floors where they stayed air born much longer due to the situation).

They told us to stay out of dry very dusty places where the mice could leave a lot of droppings and when cleaning not to sweep them up into the air. JUST IN CASE the mice were infected. They never found any mice in our area with the virus and believe me they were checking like crazy. (Not even all the mice they caught on the reservation were infected only a few of them). It was like the perfect storm of a few mice and rustic living conditions.

I have never heard of Hanta outside of the dry and very hot dusty South desert climates.

The odds are very much in your favor that they are not infected and you will not be contaminated even trapping them, cleaning up after them or being around them. I have cleaned up a lot of mice issues working in warehouses and theaters.

I know it is hard not to worry when you have anxiety. Particularly health anxiety...but like I said it would be very very very rare in your area and in winter. Pretty sure you might win the lottery before catching Hanta. Big hugs and good luck!!

If my car was infested with mice, I'd set it on fire. Or I'd get a cat. One or the other. Maybe both. :)

Big cities frequently have problems with rodents when they excavate. I heard a radio program that said their best defense against mice were cats. Not only do they catch them, but the pheramones (smell) of a cat make the mice go elsewhere.

As with any pest, the best defense is to not make them comfortable. We patch up holes under porches, avoid stacking firewood too close to the house, keep the floors clean in the kitchen, repair holes in window screens. You are basically, by storing a car that you don't drive and can't sell, providing hotel service for all kinds of critters. Call Goodwill or the Salvation Army and they'll come tow your car away and you'll get a tax write-off for your gift.

But realize that even without the car in your yard, animals exist. Hanta virus is real, of course, but ticks are a bigger concern. Get rid of the mouse hotel (the car) and keep your property relatively free of piles of brush and debris and realize that you can be cautious without being paranoid.

Of course, if you insist on keeping that car, call an exterminator, relocate the car to a storage unit somewhere, and keep trying to sell it or fix it.

I would be more concerned about damage to the car, not only because of the mice but also by not having started it every couple of weeks. Engines can "freeze up" or have other difficulties if left too long without running it.

The two cases we had out here on Long Island were situations where the victims cleaned up mouse-infested shed areas with brooms, kicking up a lot of dust in the process and breathing in the virus. In one of the cases, it's my understanding that the parents imported rugs from the New Mexico-Arizona area and they theorize that infected mice were transported with the rugs, since hantavirus is more common in the southwest (and by more common I mean they maybe have a handful of cases every year, so overall not very common at all).

The advice around here is that if you find an area with a lot of mice droppings and you need to clean it, DO NOT sweep or vacuum the area, as you will breathe in the dust. Clean it up with a wet mop and Clorox solution and dispose of everything in the trash. I've had to do this once or twice. It's a pain but since we've had two (very rare) deaths by hantavirus out here, I do take precautions.

The situation you're describing does not sound like there's much risk. It's not an inside area where you're exposed to a lot of dust. We have tons of mice nests out in the woodpile and I don't worry about them (except when it comes to Lyme and I put out Premetherin just for that reason). Just be very careful if you ever have to deal with mouse droppings.