What….how….why??? All these fun questions will flood your brain as they did mine. The scraping and scurrying sound was so loud, I was convinced whatever it was, was in the actual truck bed with me. Not an easy task to remedy when you have all your storage under the bed. Substantially a lot of things to pull out awkwardly.
But I did. It was a cold, damp night by the Kentucky River. I had my radiator on full blast to stay warm, I was almost warm enough to start shedding layers when all of a sudden, I held my breath. A scratching noise began to intensify below me. I knew that sound all too well.
As I was growing up, my childhood home had an attic space above my bedroom. We lived in a very wooded area full of critters, but mice were the ones that kept me up at night. Scratching away above me bed for hours. I would bang on the ceiling and yell, but nothing deterred them.
Now in my truck, the same noise was right under me. I sat reticently and waited for it to show itself. Sure enough, a little furry face poked out from the round opening by the tailgate. There are these covers that swing over hooks in the truck bed. Essentially the plastic liner has these cut outs to allow you to access them.
Once the mouse saw me, he ran right back where he had come from. In between the truck bed liner and the truck itself.
I was perplexed, there is practically no room in between the two, let alone anything grippy enough for a mouse to be running around in.
All I could think was this mouse was going to get stuck, die, and stink up my truck bed til I could remove the liner. I tried to shake off the worst case scenario and work on evicting the critter.
Long story short, I asked said mouse to leave (which it ignored) so I found an easy solution.
Altoids.
Apparently, mice hate them. I put a few in the opening and sealed all other openings into the truck bed. After that night, I never heard scratching again.
So the Altoids either worked, or I have a mouse mummy in the truck. It doesn’t smell like a dead mouse, so I am happy either way.
