Little Collections of Acorns Everyplace

Finding little collections of acorns, oor the hulls, on top of tractor batteries, in shop drawers, inside Kohler engine housings [ I worry about that.] What little critters do I have, and how do I stop them?

Squirrels?

Here in the desert those would be packrats. They store mesquite beans all over in the engine compartment - and then chew up the wiring!

field mice

Sounds like chipmunks to me. Had the little critters fill the block and heads FULL of dog food/insulation on a tractor i had sitting in my garage that was partially assembled. Must have been 50 pounds of dog food in that engine.

Chipmunk does that in the TD-6. Fool thing has been doing it for a lot of years. Doesn't seem to chew the wires like deer mouse will. And yes, deer mice hoard acorns also. If you are close enough to oaks to have acorns you likely have both.

Definitely of the "rodent-ious" nature. There are things they don't like, dryer sheets, moth balls, mint extract, do some research to find more. It's best to be proactive, let em got, it just gets worse.

Just about every vehicle I have ever had at this place, gets deer or white footed mice, always in the air filter box or an other duct or path for air. And, it does not have to sit, they can move in overnight. Once they leave a urine or droppings scent, once gone, it may trigger new arrivals to follow.

I just did a service on that car and sure enough, there was a nest on the intake side of the filter! Took the air filter housing off, cleaned and sanitized it with bleach and water, no more odor, then took a small square of hardware cloth, covered the opening of the duct as it enters the housing, cinched it tight with tie wire.

Few years back one made a nest on the air intake side for the heat-A/C, if I recall, was on the firewall just below the windshield. Darned thing died of old age, right in the nest, being warm weather, it was blowing that nasty odor inside, took a little while to figure out how to get to it, took the interior side apart, and along the firewall, nest and carcass removed and sent to the burn barrel. Clean, sanitize, to remove odor, and blocked that air passage off with hardware cloth, so air can flow, but no mice can get in. Funny thing is that although the air ducts are quite smooth, they can still get traction vertically! Even with these cats roaming around from either the neighbors or just strays, several I have seen are good mousers, its just not enough. Really time to straighten up the place, 100%, then trap em even further near the wood piles or the old plow truck., darned things can be a real pain.