Outdoor Power Equipment (Lawn Mowers, Snow Blowers, Chain Saws and more) Discussions

What is it with mice and rats why do they love nesting in Snowblowers  The other day I found a nest so huge that it jammed the  chains in the transmission.  It took me 10 minutes to clean out the trans.  and by the time I finished I half-filled a plastic grocery bag. I will have to say these rodents are tireless workers.  

I'll trade you my squirrel for your mouse.  This wacko squirrel keeps getting into my shed and for some strange reason likes the smell of gasoline.  There was no actual gas in the tank but I guess he smelled the fumes and worked like crazy trying to get into the tank.  The cap was so damaged that I ordered a new one for $5 but luckily the actual tank looks okay. 

    Because of my website and net postings people are emailing me all the time for help.  Often the problem is a nest.  

   Each year I fix up a few to sell.   Often people ask about a trade-in and I ask what's wrong with theirs.  Last week two people had locked up machines.  I explained how to check for a nest and they ended up fixing their machines.

   I bought one machine that was an apartment house.  There was a nest in the cowling and another in the base. 

   Usually nests stop a machine from working by jamming gears in the tractor section or starter and flywheel.   A Honda I picked up with friction disk drive seemed to work fine when I tested it out at the seller's house.  I drove it around in forward and reverse a few times going through the gears and it was fine.  After getting it home I found a nest in the base but after cleaning the thing would not drive at all.  The nest was big and packed enough it jammed the the friction disk shaft into position to work nulling out the shaft's two destroyed support bearings.    

Paul7 wrote:
I had a squirrel do the same thing to a plastic gas can I had under my deck. Ate the caps off to get to the gasoline - not sure what he did with it once he achieved his goal. Maybe he was going to drink it to get a buzz on (YIKES!)???