I went to my Toyota dealer for a routine oil change (I'm not a do-it-yourself kind of gal) and asked them to check my air filter, etc. because my husband had just had his car serviced and the mechanics found peanuts, seeds and corn in the air filter.

Would you believe that they found dog food, peanuts and seeds in my blower motor, pollen filter and heater ducts. Now I have to contact the insurance company to open a claim because the service technicians need to remove parts of the lower dash to vacuum out and disinfect the air ducts as well as to check the electrical wiring to see if there's damage.

The culprits-- Mice! I live in rural Manitoba, Canada, and obviously must have mice in my garage. They have been stealing my dogs' food and bird food and storing it for the winter in my 4Runner! When the technicians removed the covering to the blower motor, almost the equivilant of a smalll back of dogfood fell onto the floor in front of the passenger seat! (They took photos for insurance purposes.)

The dealership recommends a couple of things-- strategically placing a couple of Bounce sheets in your car, or buying special products from an exterminator with a smell mice hate. Have any of you had to deal with a problem such as this? If so, what do you suggest I can do to let these creatures know they are unwelcome?

Otherwise my 4Runner is doing great. It's a 2005 V8 Sport Edition in Stratosphere Mica, with only 17, 700 Kilometers on the odometer. Other than my rodent problem, it's in pristine condition.

Get the sticky, gooey trap where once the mice sets foot, they become stuck. Cut them up and completely surround all 4 tires individually. That should put an end to your rodent problem. Better yet, get a couple cats to live in your garage.

sorry to hear that about your car. hopefully you can get everything worked out.

Where exactly do you live in Mantioba? I'm from winkler (120km south of winnipeg)

I didn't see it, but once after lunch three of my other coworkers saw a rat inside my coworker's truck before it ran up the dash. They said it had a pretty large tail too.

The sticky traps are probably the most effective. However, make sure the glue is tacky. I saw it once where the mouse just ran right over the top and it didn't stick to the glue trap.

Thank you for all your suggestions. First thing we will do is thoroughly clean out our garage to get rid of any food sources. Then I will be looking into sticky traps. My husband and I are hesitant to use poison as we have 2 dogs and a cat (and indoor one) and we don't want them to eat or go near a poisoned mouse.

I had also considered letting my cat live in the garage for a few days as she is quite a good mouser!

My husband and I live right outside a small community called Seven Sisters Falls in Manitoba. Our property borders the Whitemouth River. We are about a mile south of RR307- the Northern entrance to the Whiteshell Provincial Park and quite close to the Seven Sisters dam on the Winnipeg River.

I had the little critters do that to my motorcycles. One mouse had filled up the air cleaner housing with a winter's worth of eaten acorns. Luckily had a K&N filter installed and I think the little wire mesh kept it from eating the element. Actually had ridden around a while before I discovered it, but the filter kept out the debris. Another mouse picked my Yamaha for his/her home and built an elaborate nest under the seat. How those little devils climbed all the way up there, I'll never know.

They seem to like air intakes, filter housings, stuff with tubes and cavities at the end. I guess your 4Runner was a high-tech Habitrail.

The stickies have worked extremely well for me, too, but I don't know how well they mix with pets. Be careful with that.

I would start with the food source first. Try to get the Dog food/bird seed/etc off the floor and in re-sealable bins. That gives these critters less incentive to stay in the garage. I'm not so sure that the sticky traps will work that well as these little guys jump about 1-2 feet straight up, so they may jump to a heat source once the engine cools down in the night time hours. I would probably try the Bounce sheets (at the very least they'll smell better), but definitely get the food to a place that is inaccessible to them. I have my dog's food in a large rubbermaid bin with a lid and the bird food in smaller bins in shelves about 5 feet up on the wall.

I had the same thing happen to me. Paper towel shreds in my A/C filter and blowing through the lower heater vents. The plastic re-sealable bins are useless. The mice ate through the plastic top! You essentially have to remove all foodstuff from the garage.

Thank you again for the wonderful responses. I just wanted to add a little update that has nothing to do with the rodent situation but relates to my 4Runner!

My husband and I were driving home from Pine Falls, Manitoba on Saturday, August 5th, in my 4Runner and unwittingly drove into the path of that killer Tornado that caused distruction across Southern Manitoba.

Hail started falling and the winds picked up and my husband could see a funnel cloud forming (I was driving and had my eyes on the road). The wind really picked up and we pulled into someone's driveway because there were branches and things flying. All of a sudden, the wind grew even stronger-- pieces of the roof of the house that was about 300 feet up the driveway started flying off and the 4Runner was hit by a couple of really strong blasts of wind. Tops of trees across the road broke off and flew away! Lots of unidentified debris (including house shingles) pummeled my 4Runner.

When it was all over, my 4Runner sustained minor damage-- some scratches and a smashed rear light (on the passenger's side). We have not noticed any dents from the golf-ball sized hail.

We learned a few minutes later that about 1-1/2 kilometers (less than 1 mile) ahead of us a huge electrical tower crashed down onto the road we were driving on (Highway 11 South). Had we left to go home a couple of minutes earlier-- we may have been driving underneath that tower in the area where the Tornado winds were strongest!

My 4Runner did great-- we felt totally safe. It will be easy to get her fixed, but I will have to make another call to my insurance company. Makes my mouse situtation look like peanuts!

I've had good luck with one of the Ratzapper products.

See http://www.ratzapper.com/

Works well on mice and rats (which are much harder to catch than mice) and has benefits over poisons, snap traps, and sticky traps. Unlike poisons, you know immediately when you've killed one and they don't go off to die (and stink!) somewhere. I've heard variable results from sticky traps, especially with rats who learn to avoid them after seeing other critters trapped there.

The ratzappers also pose no threat to other pets.

Ratzapper products were recommended to me from a coworker whose father had used them to fix a mouse problem in his Corvette. These days there are apparently similar products from other manufacturers.

Good luck, and let us know how you do.

Leaving the cat in the garage for a few nights seems like a good idea. I'd also put all the dog/cat food inside the house to take away the food supply.

Regarding the hail storm, understand -- the sheet metal is much stronger than we expected. About 3 months after we bought it, we were at a friends house and had 3 hailstorms come through on 30-minute intervals. Each storm had 70+ mph winds -- the first and third were golf ball size stones, the middle one was marble sized. If you look very carefully, you can see a few dents on the roof, but they are very hard to see. Glad to hear that yours came out OK, too.

Years ago (many, many ), when I worked for Honda we had a lot of people with the same type of problem with chipmunks getting into the heating/cooling ducts and leaving their food stashes to clog up everything. We eventually started making guards out of 1/4" mesh screening to cover the fresh air intakes. One of the techs in the shop was taking the dash on a '84 Accord apart when a chipmunk ran out of a duct and up his arm. Nearly scared the pee out of him. I was on the floor, laughing so hard. I have also heard of snakes getting into the heating/cooling ducts in some parts of the country.

Any how, making metal mesh guards for the fresh air intake and air intake to the engine may be the best permanent solution.

You mean like this?

Hey, now thats what I call a SERPENTINE BELT. You will have to add that to your list of MODS.