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Use a lot. In my experience as soon as the smell starts to diminish the rodents will use the dryer sheets for nesting material. So make sure you have access to the car all winter as you should regularly change out the old sheets with new.
Use a lot. In my experience as soon as the smell starts to diminish the rodents will use the dryer sheets for nesting material. So make sure you have access to the car all winter as you should regularly change out the old sheets with new.
How many is "a lot"?
I do have access to the car, but I hadn't heard they need to be replaced throughout the winter.
I put two or three sheets in the interior and do not change them. Still have two inside from last winter and it still smells fresh inside. I personally use a moth cake in the engine compartment. One or two sheets in the frunk or a moth cake. The new moth cakes do not have the forever yucky smell that the old moth ***** did. Once you remove them and leave the hoods open for a reasonable amount of time the smell is gone.
Its all probably useless, but I use peppermint oil in cotton *****...pack them in some old prescription bottles and soak the crap outta them. Put them in the frunk, engine bay and interior. Supplement with some dryer sheets, but let's be real...mice don't mind living in their own urine and feces...do we really think a nice dryer sheet is really gonna keep them away?
Use zero dryer sheets.
Available at Home Depot and refills at Tractor Supply Company.
You do know how the poison works don't you? It causes whatever eats it to hemorrhage internally and bleed out. Not a great thing if a mouse eats it and manages to make it inside the car... They generally leave a nasty trail as they're dying... This being said, I've tried the "humane" minty stuff and they actually eat the packets of the stuff that's supposed to be repelling them... "little bastids"...
I've also heard of people using bars of Irish Spring soap. I'm trying them in my Elise this year - two in the cabin, one in the frunk. Smaller cabin and frunk, though.
I've also heard of people using bars of Irish Spring soap. I'm trying them in my Elise this year - two in the cabin, one in the frunk. Smaller cabin and frunk, though.
That's what I used in my interior last year (and what I used for ~15 years in a classic muscle car I used to own).
I lived in California and had to move as I just could not deal with all the nanny laws and consistent overreach both for home and in my business. The final straw was when I was attempting to have a glass of orange juice for breakfast at Millie's in Fontana before the CART race and they brought me a four oz thimble because of some state statue that determined the bacterial content of a glass sitting for some bureaucrat's period of time who determined that it was unhealthy, yet when I went out that very same evening..... since I was the designated driver, I enjoyed large glasses of orange juice from the bar all night long in spite of sitting for hours with all that bacterial content.......just what was the difference? Anyhow, here on the east coast, I will be using Tom Cat regardless, and I have adjusted the overhead door, spray foam, double screened the top vents, and added some aluminum metal backing to complement the rubber sides from the bottom area to the top. In the other garage, those bastards chewed the rubber sides...and there were far too many access areas whereas I have attempted to plan ahead.....hopefully as there is only one door on the side and an overhead door while the floor area was painted with epoxy right up to the studs!
metal strips applied starting at the bottom behind the rubber side sealers
My neighborhood borders a state forest so we have tons of creatures large and small around the area. I used to keep my 944 in a portable garage and used mothballs, dryer sheets, peppermint oil, and still could not keep the freaking mice from nesting in the engine bay happily chewing all of the insulation off wires. One time they got in the car, but I caught that before the cretins starting chewing up the interior. I'd put 3 or 4 dryer sheets under the hood and several in the car. It was a never ending battle.
In the summer one time I poured some peppermint oil on the ground around the car thinking that would deter mice. A few days later I looked in the portable garage and found hundreds of ants having a field day with the oil. Oops, never did that again!
One thing you do not want to do is bait them with traps and use deterrents at the same time. The mice will ignore the deterrents to get to food in a trap. They also never stop coming. So you trap 1, 2, then 3 or 4, and that continues all winter, because they get lured in by the food or the smell in the trap. I've had mice spring a trap in my shed that previously caught one and left a new trap with food alone.
Now I have nice large garage to keep my vehicles in and so far I have not seen any rodents. I don't keep the garage doors open long and never keep them open if we take off in a car.
And it won't rust! 
