Not really, but they are in my garage and have been all winter! It’s party central in there; nest material strewn far and wide, bird seed scattered throughout and droppings all over the place and inside the hood of the car. How do I know this? Well, my neighbor came over to take the triple charger (whatever that is) off the car battery and when I pointed out the mouse droppings he promptly told me not to look at them. Lest you think we are negligent, we try to leave our garage in fairly good shape over the winter and we laid traps, put out poison and plugged in some kind of electric current gadgets designed to keep mice away. Apparently none of them worked this winter!
Oh well I thought, what’s a little mouse cleanup added to my spring tidying up. The car smelled a little funky inside but I didn’t see any droppings so no big deal, right? My first real concern was when I started the car and a noise that sounded like lots of small pebbles rumbling around started coming out of the vents. As I ventured down the road the sound eventually dissipated but what took its place was a god awful smell coming through the vents. I immediately rolled down the windows and have had them, at least partially, down ever since. The smell gets really bad when it rains and is not letting up! Phew!
An active mind is not always a good thing because I started wondering what kind of damage mice can do under the hood of a car over a long winter. I am not sure I even want to know given the car still seems to be working fine. Then I remembered the panic, at least a decade ago, about something called the hanta virus that was caused by exposure to mice droppings from infected mice living in dusty enclosed spaces in rural areas. Oh great, this sounds just like the environment in my garage. I have not yet succumbed to consulting Google about current day knowledge related to the hanta virus but I see it coming one of these long evenings.
I have thought about setting the power washer loose under the hood of the car but don’t really know how to run it and realize I might cause more harm than good. I’d put Paul on the job if he weren’t still in China. The car is a 20 plus year old piece of %&# that I tried to trade in once before but Paul wouldn’t let go of for the low trade in value being offered at the time. The car is a lot older now so, in his absence, I could just trade it in for a new car now. I do, however, remember him saying something about waiting until I am eligible for Medicare before we buy a new car which is, unfortunately, still a couple years away. In the meantime, I think I’ll go down to the car service garage and see what they have to say about my predicament. I’ll also pay good money to anyone out there up for car detailing and garage cleanup! 2019