Very Strange Thing--I've Got Leaves in My Glovebox!

[Qs Laptop]

Happened to open my glovebox on my 2018 Ram 1500 yesterday and here's what I found:



This is the third time I've seen leaves in my glove box, but never this many leaves. Previously it has been only a few leaves. The last time I was in my glove box was in May, when I did a deep clean of my truck. So these leaves have built up over the past 5 months.

I do park outside and there are tree limbs overhead.

Can someone tell me how leaves can possibly get into my glovebox?

So far, the popular theories from online and from friends are:

1. A small rodent is building a nest in your glovebox. OK, but why are the leaves intact (not in pieces)? How/why does a mouse carry an entire handful of leaves and end up putting them in the glovebox? WHY would a mouse build a nest in the glovebox when there are dozens of better places nearby to build a nest? I found no acorns and no mouse turds in my glovebox.

2. The cabin air filter is missing and leaves are blowing through the HVAC system and winding up in the glovebox. No, the cabin air filter is not missing. Full of crunched up leaf particles, but it's installed.

3. Someone is pranking me and putting leaves in my glovebox to freak me out. Doubtful. The truck is locked 24/7 unless I am in it and my wife is not the practical joker type. Besides, this is the third time I've found leaves in my glovebox.

Some interesting things to ponder.

Oak tree leaves can be seen in the mix of leaves. The nearest oak tree is in the neighbor's back yard across the street. Otherwise, the predominant leaves are crabapple tree leaves and ash tree leaves, which are the trees near my truck.

The leaves are intact, whole leaves. Might it be possible that the leaves got into the glove box when they were flattened out and green, then dried out and curled up in the glovebox?

The blower fan (or one of the blower fans) for the HVAC system is behind the glovebox and (I think) blows into the cabin air filter housing. So there is close proximity of the blower fan to the glovebox.

There is another glovebox directly above the main glovebox. There are no leaves in this secondary glovebox.

I know there are a lot of very smart people on ER with a lot of experience. That's why I'm appealing to the group. Any help solving this mystery would be helpful.

 

[ivinsfan]

Put some mousetraps and sticky pads in your glove box and vehicle. Our garage is pretty rodent proof. On day I open glove box because I need a kleenex and presto nice little kleenex pile inside. get traps in car next day..dead mouse..it's never happened again but I no longer keep tissues in the glove box.

 

[Qs Laptop]

Put some mousetraps and sticky pads in your glove box and vehicle. Our garage is pretty rodent proof. On day I open glove box because I need a kleenex and presto nice little kleenex pile inside. get traps in car next day..dead mouse..it's never happened again but I no longer keep tissues in the glove box.

I've seen a chipmunk in the yard and near the driveway this summer.

Did you put the trap inside the glove box?

Seems kind of creepy to go into my truck each day and open the glovebox hoping to find a dead mouse inside!

But again, how can the leaves be intact? They were not crumbled up or in pieces. I don't see how a rodent can drag leaves through the labyrinth of the stuff under the dashboard without damaging the leaves.

 

[FlaGator]

I'd focus on one aspect of your #2 - fresh air intake for the A/C is in the cowl. Is there ducting or a seal missing? I'm not familiar with your vehicle, so can't provide anything more specific.

Good luck with this puzzle!

 

[ivinsfan]

Well Q, after you've lived on a farm for 50 years...NOTHING an animal or rodent can do will surprise you. Traps are cheap and BTW if all they do is bring leaves you are lucky...
traps in the glovebox and the interior of the car...


in case its a chipmunk your traps might get sprung or glue traps moved. In that case you are going to need a rat trap or perhaps a small hav a heart trap.



PSA don't use mouse poison for obvious reasons!

 

[Qs Laptop]

I'd focus on one aspect of your #2 - fresh air intake for the A/C is in the cowl. Is there ducting or a seal missing? I'm not familiar with your vehicle, so can't provide anything more specific.

Good luck with this puzzle!

To test your theory I'm going to open the glove box door and cycle the HVAC fan and see if there is some blowing air entering the glovebox area. If so, I will attempt to trace it back to the source.

 

[HawkeyeNFO]

My Chrysler Pacifica has a cabin air filter right above the glove box. Being designed by the same people, perhaps your Chrysler product has the same configuration, and just needs a new filter(?). I've never seen full leaves in the filter or glove box though.

 

[Aerides]

I had something similar happen but in the main engine compartment. I lifted the hood one day and the whole thing looked like your box - a couple of buckets full of leaves.

Some windy days created some odd mini cyclones under the car (wind can do weird things, and given the placement in my driveway and a garden wall near, it sort of makes sense). Leaves would get under the car easily and caught in these cyclones. And since the bottom of the engine is somewhat open, up they came through it I guess.

I initially thought it was animals building a nest, but that would have been a LOT of work, and I'd been driving the car like that! But I remembered seeing the circles of leaves in little gusts and figured that might have been it.

 

[ivinsfan]

Main engine compartment isn't the glove box though is it..? This is a great logic question though. I admit I'm stuck on the rodent answer but that's a well earned personal bias...

 

[Aerides]

Main engine compartment isn't the glove box though is it..? This is a great logic question though. I admit I'm stuck on the rodent answer but that's a well earned personal bias...

No, but the visual was very similar so I though perhaps it might be of some help.......

 

[bloom2708]

Has the cabin filter been removed? Check and replace cabin filter under/behind the glove box.

 

[Qs Laptop]

My Chrysler Pacifica has a cabin air filter right above the glove box. Being designed by the same people, perhaps your Chrysler product has the same configuration, and just needs a new filter(?). I've never seen full leaves in the filter or glove box though.

The Ram pickup has the same basic configuration as your Pacifica, with the cabin air filter right behind the glovebox. The cabin air filter is installed--it's dirty, and needs replacement--but it would effectively block any leaves from getting into the cabin, and thus into the glovebox.

 

[Qs Laptop]

Has the cabin filter been removed? Check and replace cabin filter under/behind the glove box.

Nope CAF not removed. See point #2 in my original post.

 

[ivinsfan]

No, but the visual was very similar so I though perhaps it might be of some help.......

I wasn't dinging on you, my bad if you thought that, I was saying it's an interesting question and I'm going to die on the hill that it's a bleeping rodent.

 

[calmloki]

Aliens.

The size of the leaves precludes all other solutions. except maybe kids or a spouse who thinks you need something to keep your mind going.

 

[Qs Laptop]

AHA!!

We had a pretty good storm last night, windy enough to take down a couple small branches of our ash tree. I checked the glove box for leaves this morning. Nope. No leaves.

I just got back from going to the grocery store and when I checked in the glove box there were three small leaves in there, intact, and one was an oak leaf.

 

[MRG]

Someone is messing with you.

 

[ivinsfan]

AHA!!

We had a pretty good storm last night, windy enough to take down a couple small branches of our ash tree. I checked the glove box for leaves this morning. Nope. No leaves.

I just got back from going to the grocery store and when I checked in the glove box there were three small leaves in there, intact, and one was an oak leaf.

Eventually you will believe me.....

 

[Flyfish1]

Eventually you will believe me.....

Rodent until proven otherwise. Put a trap in the glovebox as suggested. Had this happen in my Jeep and I didn't catch it quick enough , the odor was overpowering and I eventually sold it.

 

[Aerides]

AHA!!

We had a pretty good storm last night, windy enough to take down a couple small branches of our ash tree. I checked the glove box for leaves this morning. Nope. No leaves.

I just got back from going to the grocery store and when I checked in the glove box there were three small leaves in there, intact, and one was an oak leaf.

wait, to clarify: The "new" leaves appeared after you drove this car to the store and back? Or was the car left alone at home and you came back to find them.

IE - did the new leaves appear after/during a visit to a location away from your house in the middle of the day?

 

[harley]

The cabin air filter being there doesn't necessarily mean it's installed properly. I's seen them just sort of leaning there, not in the grooves, and a lot of debris came in that way.

Having said that, I'm going with rodents.

 

[PaunchyPirate]

You might ask on RamForum.com. I did a quick search and found one person complaining about small leaves in their glove compartment. That thread references something called a Cabin Air Filter Mod. The person with leaves said they didn't do any sort of modification, but perhaps a previous owner did or something. Searching on the "Cabin Air Filter Mod" shows pictures of someplace on the vehicle that certainly has a hole big enough for leaves to get thru and going somewhere. It's unclear to me where that hole is, but it appears that it's somewhere under the hood. But I suppose it could sucking in the leaves and a faulty placed filter is letting them into the glove compartment.

Might be worth a trip to the Ram dealer.

 

[Qs Laptop]

You might ask on RamForum.com. I did a quick search and found one person complaining about small leaves in their glove compartment. That thread references something called a Cabin Air Filter Mod. The person with leaves said they didn't do any sort of modification, but perhaps a previous owner did or something. Searching on the "Cabin Air Filter Mod" shows pictures of someplace on the vehicle that certainly has a hole big enough for leaves to get thru and going somewhere. It's unclear to me where that hole is, but it appears that it's somewhere under the hood. But I suppose it could sucking in the leaves and a faulty placed filter is letting them into the glove compartment.

Might be worth a trip to the Ram dealer.

I've been on RamForums.com.

I took some photos of the area in question.

First, here is a photo of the Ram 4th generation HVAC ducting system. The area of interest is the recirculation door/cabin air filter/HVAC fan area.






And here is what this particular area looks like in my truck. When the recirc button on the HVAC system is pressed to ON, the accordion-like door retracts meaning the recirc function is engaged. Air is pulled from the interior of the truck through the cabin air filter and distributed through the vent system.




When the recirculation button is pressed and the recirc function is OFF, the accordion-like door moves and clamps down on the top of the cabin air filter housing allowing outside air to flow through the CAF and into the interior.




Notice the crushed leaf remnants jammed into the area between the recirc door and its housing. I don't think mice are packing leaves into that area. Also, if someone was messing with me I don't think they are putting leaves there either. I guess it could be aliens...

Also, there were leaf shards and fragments on top of the cabin air filter housing.

I'm going to drive around with the cabin air filter removed, the glove box door removed and see if leaves and debris comes blowing in there as I'm driving.

 

[Qs Laptop]

The cabin air filter being there doesn't necessarily mean it's installed properly. I's seen them just sort of leaning there, not in the grooves, and a lot of debris came in that way.

Having said that, I'm going with rodents.

The CAF is installed properly. I don't think it's rodents, as you can see in the pictures in my previous post.

 

[Winemaker]

Someone is messing with you.

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