I changed my oil 2 weeks ago and didn’t notice anything wrong in my 4th Gen.

This morning, my AC wasn’t blowing.

Looked in there and sure enough, mamma red squirrel had moved in! Here are six babies in good condition. They must have gone for a little spin but were all ok.

I put them back near where I keep the 4runner parked, in the shade for mamma to find them. I didn’t have the heart to do anything else. I hate red squirrels, but not that much.

Please let me know where to look for hidden damage, anyone who has been through this before.

Attached Images

       

If it was me I'd clean everything out with bleach/hydrogen peroxide kitchen spray just so I wasn't getting a face-full of squirrel germs and give the wiring a quick check and call it good. Looks like you got very lucky, imagine if it had been stood un-used for a while.

I’ve had rodent get into my cabin air filter a couple times. I made this screen using wire cloth following a thread on here I can’t find. After cleaning and disinfecting I’d remove your wipers and cowl then make a screen to cover the air intake. Hope this helps.

Attached Images

 

I feel lucky! Thanks for the input. Will do

Genius!

Yep, the “critter mod.” Did mine a while back.

Ah yes... the joys of vehicles and rodent infestations. I deal with this on an annual basis at work. Well, let's start with the easy stuff:

~While you have the blower motor out, get a flashlight and a small mirror (or if you have a borescope use that instead) and get the mirror position in the blower housing so you can see into the Evaporator Core. You're looking for any signs of nesting/debris/feces/urine/etc. that indicates the rodents bypassed the Cabin Air Filter and moved into the HVAC box.

-IF they have done that, you're going to probably want to pull the HVAC box and determine if it's cleanable, sometimes they are. (Note- We have had hit & miss luck with cleaning out HVAC assemblies. The plastic that these things are made out of seems to be rather porous and while you might get the death/rodent stench out, it may just absorb the bleach/cleaner smell. As a result at work due to come-backs and such, we just replace the entire units rather than take the chance it comes back with the customer complaining that the chemical smell won't go away) I would also suggest moving onto the next inspection step.

-IF NOT then vacuum/wipe down everything really well and then install a rodent screen (I show how I did mine in my build thread: Zombie Truck 2.0 MPAV Build!) and call it a day. Realistically speaking, there are other ways a rodent could theoretically get inside the vehicle besides the HVAC inlet (the most obvious being if you're leaving your windows down and the vehicle unattended for a while), but I haven't really seen any of our customers have reoccurrences after we've installed a screen. It seems to be enough of a deterrent to our little furry friends.

~ Assuming you found evidence that they have gotten past the cabin air filter and into the HVAC System and/or vehicle I would check the following places:

-Pull the edges of the carpeting in the front footwells of the vehicle (along the door sill & towards the firewall where the wire harnesses for the doors pass through/connect is the usual place to look). Also check under your rear seats and the edges of the carpeting under the door sills of the 2nd row seating area.

-Also inspect the carpeting and spare tire tool storage area in the rear cargo area (pop off the covers for the tail light bulbs and see if you can see any nesting/evidence of rodent intrusion behind the panels.

-Finally (or do this first if you're flat rate, lol), pull the top edges of the door sill weather stripping off and gently pull down on the headliner itself. You don't need to pull too hard, just enough that you can get a look at the back side of it along the doorsill to look for any signs of nesting/feces/urine stains/etc.

IF you see any evidence of rodent droppings/urine stains/nesting/etc. in any of sections listed above, the interior of the vehicle needs to be removes and further inspection of rodent damage will be required. I will also add that in my experience, if they've gotten all the way up into the headliner; then they've been everywhere else in the vehicle already. It always seems to be the last place they end up after they've had their run of the vehicle. This is usually something that you'll have to get your insurance involved with and with older vehicle it can end up totaling them outright after tearing down and finding thousands if not tens of thousands of dollars of damage. That being said, the use car market is insane right now, so the value of the vehicle will likely be in your favor in that regard.

Post Note-

You can also play the "Ignorance is Bliss" card and just clean the blower housing up and install a rodent screen and hope you never have to acknowledge the possibility they may have gotten further into the vehicle. If you're not having issues with smells/stains/etc. after you clean the blower motor... it may be best to just not open that potential can of worms? I know a lot of customers don't seem to care/notice the rodent infestation until there's a rotting corpse (seriously... you have no idea how many dog owners and old people just seem to be oblivious to the stench/signs that their vehicle is just totally infested with rodents; like I can open the door and I already know that vehicle needs to be torn down... BLECH!) and a lot of times even IF they did make a nest somewhere else in the vehicle, if it's not causing problems; once you prevent them from getting in, you should be fine.

Thanks for the excellent post! I will do all of it. Blackworks you rock man.

I need to do this. Is it essentially the same on a 5th gen?

Here’s my critter mod post in case anyone finds it helpful.

i replaced my cabin filter a few weeks ago and noticed some nest there. i think it's a squirrel since i found some pine nuts there. the filter did not have any hole so pretty much i'm good. looks like a cozy place to raise their young.

i think the reason those squirrel make a nest there is because the car is not driven all the time or parked in one spot for weeks at a time.

at one point, there was a pine nut on top of my engine and looks like they are starting to create a nest. it's also possible for a mice to make a nest inside your frame. it's good to cover frame holes also so they don't bring in some stuff inside. i never park inside my garage anymore since i might be bringing in some mice.

About 7-8 years ago I was camping and hiking out of my 07 Tundra and when I got ready to come home it was cold and rainy so I turned the heater on high and I thought the whole dash was gonna vibrate out of it. I looked into it and found a live mouse in there. Once I got to a town I went to the nearest parts store and bought one of those mechanical finger things, you know the long thing where you squeeze the end and it opens up the fingers. Anyway, I ran it down in there and used my phone camera like a mirror and tried to catch him. Every time I almost had him he'd move. So I turned the blower on high for about 20 seconds which left him too dizzy to move and I grabbed him and released him outside. But you wouldn't believe how the dash vibrated with him in there throwing the blower out of balance. I know this doesn't help the OP but I just wanted to tell my story.

Actually laughed out loud at this. Genius.

Red squirrels, ugh. I had a long fight with those buggers in my attic.

Wow, that is another genius move! Smart! I feel damn lucky that it wasn't so much worse!