Worst experience cleaning out the creepy stuff inside the new project?

Ok, so I'm curious. What was your worst experience cleaning out that rusty old project you brought home? I can tell you that I'm a little afraid to get into two cars that I just picked up last weekend. I'm waiting for snakes or large rodents to jump out at me. I mean, these cars have been sitting for years. Wow, interiors with a little water and the sun make some funky looking stuff. Most be spider heaven. How does it manage to get so gross?

So how did you tackle this job? Bug bomb first? Get someone else to clean it out? Geesh, putting my hands under the seats to loosen the bolts seems really scary. They'll be rusty as hell and I'll end up having to spend a lot of time there. And then there's opening the trunk with a screwdriver since there are no keys, and the trunk hasn't seen the light in 10 years.

Am I a girlie man here or what?

Thanks!

Gary

 

Wear mechanics gloves and long sleeves. Put down a tarp inside the car where you're working. Watch for brown recluse spiders. I see them a lot more than mice and snakes.

I've dragged home over a dozen old cars full of leaves, mold, trash, etc. The creepiest thing that ever happened to me was when a brown recluse spider ran across my hand.

 

Don't a bite from those things like kill you skin??

 

girlie man

 

I bought my old chevy from a mechanic's shop. the car had been sitting for a couple of years. I used to drive by at night to go check it out. One time I went to show a buddy the car I was thinking about buying, it was like 1am. We opened the door and woke up the bum that was sleeping in the back seat! haha. We scared the shit out of each other...
After I finally picked the car up, we rolled it back and there was a used condom underneath where it was parked. I bought new seats anyways..

 

Towed a 53 Mercury Monclair 2 dr. home from a back yard. made it 17 miles home. Went to wash the thing...poped open the hood and I guess inbetween the cowl and inside fender a mother possum had decided to give birth to about 4 babies....now that was a wake up call!!!!

 

heh thats funny, cause when my brother brought home his 53 merc home and we started gutting the interior a big possum came out from underneath the back seat!!! i just chased it outta the garage like a caveman with a broom

 

when I got my bus home it had a foot of rat shit in it, so the car wash got it. then i started seeing new twigs & what looked like rat shit inside the cab. so out came the "Blue Death" rat poison, I have no idea what it was but it looked like a huge rat(18"+ long w/o tail) when i found it dead in one of the seats. needless to say the rat & the seat went to the scrap yard.
what surprized me is a dragged that thing from far NW Kansas to St Louis & even washed it out before i found the rat, hell i would of thought it would of ran at it's first chance...joe

 

Hey Spark, I figured you Aussie boys would think this is too girlie of me! I mean you guys eat like raw alligators for lunch, right?

 

the panel sat long enough that the tire seperated from the wheel. a black widow had moved in there (and about 10 other locations). these were real black widows, big heavy suckers, not the little dudes you see. anyways, i left him in the wheel when I reinflated the tire. what a way to die.

 

Bug bomb that bitch!

 

I just do it. Here's what I found when I pulled the seats from the 55 wagon.


and



So that was bad enough, but when I pulled the headliner, 50 years of dust and rat/mouse droppings falling in my face, in my hair and all over was pretty disgusting. And, what was almost as bad was taking the "sticky" vinyl off the original seats (why sticky??) and the rat's nest inside each, loaded with refuse and rat crap of course.

The 40 coupe was ALMOST as bad, but the rat had just built his nest in the headliner above the mirror...you guessed it, open it up and out it tumbles....disgusting.

How to clean it? I use a shop vac, and try and call my wife to do it, but she's not much into rat shit either. Put on some gloves and wear long sleeves if it weirds you out too much, but better to get it clean than to keep dealing with it.

And I HATE spiders, not freak out hate, but sqeemish hate...and we've got brown recluse and widows nests on everything in our garage...did I mention I hate spiders!

 

I've said it before and I ain't afraid to admit it again... I HATE SPIDERS!!! Removing the battery tray on my 66 Chevy truck I had to hold a bolt that was spinning under the radiator support. Suddenly my left index finger was on fire!! Pulled it out and saw two small punchures. The pain was incredible! Iced it for several hours and took a few pain pills. The next day the swelling was pretty bad but I figured it would go away. Ended up going to the doc two days later cuz my finger had swollen up to over 1 1/2" in diameter, my whole hand was tingly like it had fallen asleep and all the veins up to my elbow were purple and bulging out. The doc said I was bit by a brown widow spider, gave me two shots, a perscription and said the next 24 hours would be the most important cuz if the swelling didn't go down, the arm was coming off cuz it was already dying. UGH!!!!!

I'm happy to say I still got both my wings and it turned out ok, but man that was scary! I was recently bitten by another spider but only felt like crap the next day, threw up some and had some weird, big ass bruising for over a week.

I can not stress this enough... When putting yer hands where there haven't been any for a long time, take precautions!!! Good, thick welding gloves that extend up yer arm are cheap at Harbor Freight and could make a huge difference in yer car cleaning experiences. A thick long sleeve shirt may not be the most comfortable, but much better than what could happen. Also, bug bombs don't do a damn thing to spiders as they do not "clean themselves" like other bugs. With spiders you pretty much have to squish em or there are no guarantees, even spider killer sprays don't work very well. On the more dangerous spiders like brown and black widows, brown recluses and the like, the sprays rarely work. Call yer local home pest spray companies and ask them for their ideas.

I will let you know what I use though... and don't laugh cuz it works every time... 3M Super 77 spray glue. Pretty much as soon as it hits em, they can't move. I LOVE IT!! Then I go in to send em to spider hell!!! Try it out. Works great on bees and wasps too.

 

JD: Well, I think you win the prize so far. My headliner looks to be holding mouse droppings. So, I guess that's better than big rats jumping out! That looks like a dog?

 

WTF??? Is that a dog?

 

Wear a mask. All that rat shit etc. is pretty nasty stuff, you don't want it in your lungs.

Do you have deadly spiders in Maryland?!

 

Nailhead - Your freaking me out now. Maybe I can get a "cleaning" service to do the dirty work!

 

Cat. A bowl of water and some kibble and he'll be as frisky as ever. They're pretty resilient.

 

^^ its a baby chupa-cabra

 

Big A - Well, if you believe what the "experts" say, no....but.....I don't believe it. I picked the '54 up in Kansas and getting the '48 Desoto from South Carolina. Sort-a like a mobile home for insects and other things that leave puddles of shit everywhere.

Glad to know the bug bombs don't work...

 

Ugh! Yeah, the headliner full o' mouse turds. Seats, too. Nothing like realizing what exactly it is raining down on you... Is that rust? Some kind of insulation? Oh my gawd! It's... it's.. gyahhhh!!!

Definitely wear a mask. Bird and rodent droppings are toxic.

I had one guy tell me about the Starliner he bought. He was trying to get it started and it was coughing and sputtering. Finally there was a bit of a ka-boom in the exhaust and a mouse nest shot out the tailpipe! Ha!

 

I'd rather find the latter of the two animals... There dead, they dont bite!

 

When cleaning out old cars be sure and wear a good dust mask that fits tightly. That dust and rat crap and stuff can be toxic to you and anyone, especially kids, around the car until its washed and cleaned out.

 

Mummified rat (or squirrel) but I think a rat.

 

I once brought home a 56 Ford big back window that had a very large rat between the tranny and the floorboard. Four bug bombs latter we cleaned it all out and a black widow dropped from the cealing right next to me, I sold the truck three days later for a small profit. I still don't know how that widow lived through all those bombs, unless it had just gone in there it's still CREEPY !!!!! Rags

 

I guess I lucked out with my stude truck when the worst I found was a bunch of bird shit, and when I opened the passenger door a bowling ball rolled out and landed on my foot.

 

Took a dash out of an old Rambler and it was full of snake skins.Climbing through the harnesses helped the shedding. Luckily I didn,t see the snake although I,m not afraid of them.Getting startled does more damage when you yank your hand out!

 

I bought a '53 Cheyv Hard Top out of a yard a few years ago. IT was complete, came with a shit ton of extra parts and the price was too good to true. My buddies and I went to the yard to get it running and drive it home 'cos I was to much of an outlaw or too cheap to tow the damn thin. Anyway in the piss down rain we drained the tank, conected the radiator and sweeped the rat shit off of the front seat. Got that old 6 running after about 20 minutes and drive it the 5 miles to my house (in the rain), About a mile from home it stated running like shit and getting HOT. We stopped at a gas station, let her cool down a bit, still hot my dumb ass opens the cap... Out sprays, bubbles or what have you a rat! A god damn rat! What the hell was he doing in the radiator? Now that is one heel of a way to die...

After I replaced the water pump and re-cored the radiator I found about a half dozen rat skeletons (complete) in the front seat and about 4" of shit in the trunk. Cool car but what a pain in the ass.

 

The headliner in my truck had a very large mouse nest in it, and I found a dead mouse on the floor. No deadly spiders or snakes here.

I was pretty paranoid about Hanta virus though, so I took all the recommended precautions before I started tearing stuff apart. Wear a proper respirator, latex gloves, and long sleeves. Don't vacuum rodent droppings, as the vacuum cleaner will just pick up the fine dust particles and fire it out the exhaust! The recommended method is to spray down any droppings with a 10% bleach solution, then mop them up with a paper towel or shop rag. I have no idea what one does when there's 4 inches of shit though! Wet it down a bit and shovel carefully, I guess!

I ended up soaking the headliner with the bleach solution to keep the dust down. Then I taped up some plastic sheet to catch anything that fell out. This was one of the cardboard headliners, so I was able to pull it apart carefully and set it on the plastic without disturbing any droppings. Then I just wrapped up the whole works in the plastic, put it in a garbage bag and tossed it. It worked pretty well.

 

Not trying to scare ya man, just edjamacate'cha a little. Some of those spiders are nutting to mess around with! Just be careful.

I forgot to mention one of the best tools I found to clean under and around stuff is an air compressor. About 120 psi and a 2 or 3 foot section of brake or fuel line attached to the end of the blower works wonders for getting sh... stuff out of areas you don't really wanna stick yer head around.